


love is a word (you gave it a name)

by hattalove



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Babies, Canon, Cats, Christmas, Coming Out, Family, Fluff, Instagram, Kissing, M/M, Skating, Some crying, Sweaters, also marmite chicken, i've truly pulled out all the stops lol, that's how they do it they come out via instagram, what else?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 07:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2764934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hattalove/pseuds/hattalove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“It’s worth it anyway,” says Harry, looking into Louis’s eyes. He’s untucked his hair from behind his ear, and it falls down in silky strands to obscure his face. He looks so painfully young, even after everything. Louis’s strong, strong boy. “Just for the two of us. We get to be selfish for a little while.”</i>
</p><p>it's christmas. in between snowman building, tree shopping, and ill-advised skating on a frozen lake, louis and harry get ready to take the most important step of their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love is a word (you gave it a name)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inkedrope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkedrope/gifts).



> MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE. especially to you, inkedrope. i really, really hope you enjoy this at least a little bit, because it ended up going about seventeen different directions. you can, like, get in touch after the reveals and i'll write you something else to make up for this, lol. 
> 
> title is from [the moment of our love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXM8TeQY-7g) by negative. enjoy ♥

_Can we watch the snow?  
Can we watch it dance and blow,  
 warm, in our blankets?_

\- tyler knott gregson

*

**Ten days to Christmas**

Touching down in London is absolute bliss. Louis quite literally steps out of the jet, slips, and falls on his arse, and he doesn’t even give a fuck – there’s something about the air, dirty and freezing cold as it is, that smells of home. 

“Alright?” an amused voice asks from above him. 

Louis looks up. Harry’s wearing sunglasses, for whatever reason, and his bun is falling apart on one side, probably because he’d slept all over Louis on the plane. 

“Fine,” Louis huffs, trying to hold onto the last shreds of his dignity. Harry has seen him in much more embarrassing situations, of course, but Louis can hear the click of the camera they’ve hired, and he’d rather not make a complete tit of himself in front of everyone who opens the paper tomorrow. “A little help?” 

Harry grins, one of those soft, beautiful ones that Louis loves. He’s happy to be home too, Louis knows, can see it in the relaxed line of his shoulders and tucked into the corner of his smile. He reaches out a hand, his anchor hovering right in front of Louis’s nose; Louis is still not used to being this close to him outside, in plain view of anyone. 

By the time Louis is back on his feet and trying to get the worst of London’s trademark sludge snow off his joggers, the other boys have sleepily staggered off the plane. They’ve only got one car waiting for them, as per special request from Niall, and Louis only grumbles a little when he piles in. This is the last they’ll be seeing of each other for a good two weeks – he can handle not going straight home for once. 

“Alright, lads,” Niall, arguably the most awake out of all of them, shouts as soon as the car gets rolling. “Gather ‘round.” 

Louis raises an eyebrow. He is _very_ gathered, sitting half in Zayn’s lap and half on Liam’s legs, leaning against Harry with his feet propped up against the window. 

“What is it?” Zayn asks, the only one willing to indulge Niall at all times. 

Niall digs into his pocket. He pulls out what looks like a handful of shredded napkins from the plane and gives them a ridiculous grin. “Secret Santa!” he announces. 

A unanimous groan ripples through the car. Then, unanimously, all of them reach into Niall’s open palm. 

It’s pointless to try to resist him, really. 

Louis, ever a competitor, shoves Zayn and Liam’s hands away to get there first. He grabs the piece of napkin that looks the least handled. _Harry_ , it says, in handwriting so atrocious it can only belong to Niall. Nice. Lucky hands, Louis has. 

“What’s secret Santa about, then?” Liam asks, frowning at his napkin before he balls it up and throws it out of the window. 

“Presents,” Niall looks at him with one eyebrow raised, willing him to keep up. “Good ones, too. Tommo will promise to not get us any more of them blowup sex dolls, and booze is off the table. Let’s get creative, lads.” 

Niall is actually so fucking weird. Louis loves him, God, does he ever, but he’d still give anything to know how his brain works. 

Still. A creative present for Harry should not be an issue. 

Like he knows Louis is thinking about him, Harry shifts, knocking elbows with the lads until the two of them are side by side. He looks tired even in profile, heavy bags under his eyes and a pronounced wrinkle that runs between his eyebrows. His voice has been giving him trouble lately, too, and Louis can’t wait until he gets to tuck him into bed and light up all his fancy candles. 

He reaches out to tangle his fingers in Harry’s hair. He’s warm against Louis’s side, looking out the window, and his eyelids are just this side of droopy. 

“Tired, darling?” Louis asks, just loud enough for Harry to hear, and gets his answer when Harry leans against Louis's shoulder and closes his eyes.

 Louis smiles and shifts to make him more comfortable. Harry snuffles, smiles a little like he always does after he’s wished Louis goodnight, and it only takes five minutes until he’s out like a light.

It’s silent, then, for a while. All of them are lost in their own thoughts, a little run down from this round of promo. Louis watches the outskirts of London pass in a blur behind the windows, shapeless grey blobs and muddy ground, and longs for the comfort of their bed. 

The first one home is Liam. He makes sure to hug them all thoroughly even in the cramped space, and to touch a hand to Harry’s shoulder, light enough to barely be felt. It’s a little less cramped once he’s out, fighting with Paddy on the sidewalk over who gets to carry his suitcase, but it doesn’t get any easier to breathe.

So Louis doesn’t like leaving his boys. Sue him. 

He meets Zayn’s eyes over Harry’s head. He’s smiling, a little puzzling like he always does, like he’s got a million questions hidden in the quirk of his mouth that nobody can quite figure out. 

“You excited, then?” he asks, looking to Harry and back up. He’s been asking that question at least once a day, every day, and Louis would ask him to stop if he wasn’t, in fact, really fucking excited. 

“Course,” he replies, like Zayn probably knew he would, and buries his hand deeper in Harry’s hair.

“You do realise that it’ll be over by the next time we see each other.” 

And the thing is, Zayn is absolutely right. They’ve all agreed to meet at Harry and Louis’s on the 27th to belatedly celebrate Louis’s birthday. It’s going to be two entire days after— _after_.

“You’re not helping,” Louis says, but he tacks on a smile. “And this is—weird. It feels weird.” 

“I can’t imagine, mate,” Niall pipes up from his corner. “It’s been way too fucking long.” 

Louis looks down at Harry’s face. His features are relaxed in sleep, eyelashes fluttering and bottom lip jutting out; he looks sixteen again, ready to take on the world, as long as it’d be in Louis’s arms. 

Louis worries sometimes, about the toll all of this has taken on them, the permanent lines that have already etched themselves into Harry’s forehead, but all it takes is one look at him when he’s like this – with his guard down, probably dreaming about beautiful things, as Harry does, to remind Louis what’s real. 

They’ve gone through everything together, and throughout it all, Harry has been Louis’s lighthouse, the one constant in a world comprised of noise and camera flashes. He’s the strongest person Louis has ever met, and they’ve come out the other side now – they’ll have time to heal. 

“Yeah,” he agrees finally. “It has.” 

“You know you can call us with anything, right?” Zayn asks. He’s tucked a cigarette behind his ear. “I got, like, a whole new phone number just for the two of you.” 

“Aaw,” Louis grins, “that’s adorable.” 

It actually is; he’ll deny the fondness, the warmth that spreads all the way to his fingertips at Zayn’s words, but he knows he’s transparent to them anyway. They spend too much time together; all of them have got Louis figured out. 

“Yeah, same,” Niall says, lazily lifting a foot and kicking Louis in the knee. “Let us know what we can do, yeah?” 

“You’ve already done plenty, lads,” says Louis, finding one of Harry’s hands and running his fingers along the back of it. “But we will. We’ll post the thing and just start a conference call, or summat.”

Zayn grins and reaches his hand out for a fistbump. They’re stopping at his complex next - Louis knows he won’t be able to reach him for at least three days while he sleeps and turns all his phones off. 

Niall lives closest to them, and after he tumbles out of the car with a smacking kiss to the side of Louis’s head and a wave, Louis is left alone with his sleeping boy. 

“Haz,” he whispers into Harry’s hair, reluctant to wake him. “Love, we’re almost home.” 

Harry’s eyebrows scrunch. He wrinkles his nose and raises a hand to rub it. “Home?” he mumbles. 

“Yup,” Louis smiles. “Almost in bed.” 

“Yay,” Harry rumbles, sitting up and stretching. He looks a little surprised as he takes in the empty car, but he doesn’t have time to ask – they stop by the curb, and their driver pulls the door open. Harry thanks him and attempts to shake his hand even as he stumbles, blinded by the disappearing daylight. Louis, once he’s gotten their bags out of the boot, slips him a tip. 

“Come on,” he nudges Harry in the shoulder, gentle, and unlocks the gate. They’ve only been gone for a week this time, and things don’t feel as foreign as they sometimes do when they return from two months overseas. The key is easy to fit into the lock, and the unmistakable scent of home hits Louis immediately.

“Merry Christmas to us,” Harry grins, still slow and sleepy, taking off his shoes as he takes in the hall. 

“Can’t wait to not get out of the house for a week,” Louis agrees with a smile. The familiar brown walls already feel soothing around him, closing them off from the world in the best of ways. 

He stops Harry from wandering into the kitchen once their shoes and jackets are off, and instead pulls him straight to the bedroom. They fall into bed without a word, familiar crisp sheets that smell of Harry’s apple shampoo, and Louis curls around Harry’s bigger body protectively. 

“We should order groceries,” Harry mumbles, even as his voice gets deeper and spacey, a sure sign he’s drifting off again. 

“Later,” Louis yawns. Harry’s soft exhales on his neck trigger something like muscle memory, and he melts into the pillows half-asleep. “I’ll probably be up in the middle of the night anyway, I’ll do it.” 

Harry’s response is a tiny snore. 

Louis grins and looks up at the ceiling. The grooves in the wooden paneling swirl in familiar patterns, welcoming him home. The air’s stuffy with the windows closed, but the warmth of it doesn’t feel stifling on Louis’s skin; with Harry’s chest rising against Louis’s own, everything is just right.

As Louis closes his eyes, he reminds himself to go to the basement tomorrow and dig out Harry’s precious fairy lights. 

It’s going to be a good Christmas.

*

**Nine days to Christmas**

Louis wakes up to his teeth chattering. He’s alone in bed, covered with at least three more blankets than he went to sleep under, and there’s a steaming cup of tea on his bedside table. 

“What the fuck,” he mumbles, daring to poke a hand out of his cocoon. The air is _cold_ , biting into his fingertips immediately, and it’s then that he realises he can’t quite feel his nose. He stumbles out of bed, unsettled, puts on his slippers, and wraps all the blankets around himself. 

He can hear the fire going downstairs, the bizarrely satisfying crackling of wood, and he’s immediately drawn to the warmth seeping out of the living room. 

It’s where he finds Harry, too – bundled up in several sweaters and joggers, with woollen socks pulled up over his ankles, and sitting right in front of the fireplace. Louis momentarily forgets about the cold to think about how adorable he is. 

“Morning,” he says, and leans down to give Harry a kiss. Harry turns to him with a brilliant smile. He looks five years younger than he did yesterday. “What’s this?” 

Harry helps him to sit down and not lose any of his blankets before he answers. He’s staring into the fire as he does, a small pout on his lips. “The heating’s broken.” 

Louis blinks. “What now?” 

“I _know_ ,” Harry pouts some more. “I already called someone, but it’s _hours_ before they can fit us in.” 

Louis fishmouths. He moves closer to Harry, leeching some of his warmth all to himself. It’s quite nice in front of the fire, actually. Louis is going to smell like smoke, but at least his toes are warm. 

“We should call and tell Niall,” he says, finally. “He’d piss himself.” 

“It’s not funny,” Harry says, even as his mouth twists into a grin. “ Our house is trying to get rid of us, Lou.” 

Louis snorts. Harry’s sweaters are slipping down his left shoulder, revealing skin that’s lit up gold from the fire, and Louis can’t resist pressing a peck against it. “I’m sure it’ll warm up to us.” 

Harry giggles. “That’s a terrible joke,” he says unconvincingly. 

“Keep telling yourself that, love. I’m hilarious.” 

In lieu of a response, Harry leans down for a kiss. Louis smiles into it and slips his hands under Harry’s numerous tops, warming himself against his skin. 

“You know what this means, though,” Harry says when he pulls away, lips glistening in the light of the flames. 

“Do I want to?” 

“ _Christmas sweaters_ ,” Harry crows victoriously. 

They’ve got a history with Christmas sweaters, Harry and Louis. It had started all the way back in the X Factor house, when Harry went out to Tesco’s and came back with a shapeless pile of knit with a penguin on the front. Louis had refused to put it on, and Harry proceeded to chase him around the house with it, waving it above his head like a flag.

Nothing much has changed, really. Harry might be a little less prone to calling Louis a _Christmas-ruiner_ , but he still likes to chase him all over the place. It’s a tradition.

Which is how Louis knows he has approximately ten seconds to get the hell out. 

He kicks off his slippers and abandons his blankets to make his escape easier, hightailing it out of the living room and up the stairs, into their bedroom and then the en suite. He lies face down in the bathtub, hisses as the cold porcelain makes contact with his skin, and waits. He’d hidden in the closet last year, and it took Harry half an hour to find him, simply because he refused to believe Louis would go for such a tacky joke. 

No such luck this time, it seems. Louis hears him amble into the bedroom on light feet, whistling a melody he’s been working on. 

“ _Louuu_ ,” he croons, sweet as honey, but Louis can clearly hear his devilish intentions. Harry’s been buying the sweaters since October, and Louis shudders to think how many of them he’d have to put on if he were caught. Which he won’t be, because Louis is a genius hider. Hidist. Whatever. 

“Louis,” Harry says from the bathroom door. Louis tries to pull a chameleon and blend in with the tub. “Get out of there, you’re going to catch a cold.” 

Harry might have a point. Louis’s face has started going a bit numb. Still. This is not about keeping all his extremities; it’s about dignity. 

“No,” he says stubbornly, digging his toes more firmly against the porcelain. 

“I’ll let you pick this time?” Harry says hopefully. He’s moved closer, and his voice bounces off the tiles, loud. 

“Nope,” says Louis. In the next five seconds, he’s got warm arms wrapping around his chest and pulling him out. He squeaks and kicks his legs in protest, feeling like a very small, helpless animal.

Harry sets him down on his own socked feet, presumably so that Louis’s bare ones don’t get cold. Louis hates him. He also doesn’t mean that. 

He reaches up to hold on to Harry’s arms, sitting snugly wrapped around Louis’s chest. 

“Come on,” Harry says into his ear. Louis _feels_ his grin. “I promise it’ll be fun.” 

“You always promise that,” Louis grumbles, even as he resigns himself to his fate, because the thing about their annual Christmas sweater chase?

Louis always loses.

He could use some warming up, anyway. He’s pretty sure his nipples have gone permanently hard.

*

“That’s a giraffe.”

“I think it’s a reindeer,” Harry frowns. He pokes at the green fabric, trying to shift the design.

“I swear to God, Harry, that is a fucking giraffe. It’s got spots. Who puts a giraffe on a Christmas sweater?” 

Harry scratches his head. “Maybe somebody just _really_ likes giraffes?” 

Louis sighs and crosses his arms. “You said you’d let me pick. What are my other choices?” 

“Oh,” Harry beams, “right.” He trots into the closet on his ridiculous legs and, after a whole lot of rustling, comes out with an armful of sweaters. Every single one of them is in a colour Louis hates. 

“This is a penguin,” Harry throws the lime green one on the bed. It does, indeed, bear something that vaguely resembles a penguin in a Santa hat. “And this one’s a polar bear. I think.” 

There’s also a walrus, a moose, [Yoda](http://i.imgur.com/gXLqK0q.jpg), and an incredible turtleneck with Santa’s body splashed across the front, just waiting for some unfortunate soul to stick their head through the collar and make him complete. Louis grinds his teeth a little more with every one, while Harry looks progressively more and more delighted. 

“ _And_ ,” he says, holding on to his last sweater in a somewhat tolerable red colour, “this one.” 

When he turns it around, Louis wants to cry a little. 

_Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal_ , the wonky print says, surrounded by tiny snowflakes. Harry is grinning from ear to ear, batting his lashes at Louis, because he knows exactly what he’s done. 

“Seriously?” 

“Yup,” he says, excited. His smile reminds Louis of that sixteen-year-old who couldn’t control himself around a pretty boy - not that Louis himself had been any better. 

“I hate you,” he grumbles, even as he crosses the space between them in two strides and plasters himself against Harry’s chest. He leans up for a kiss and gets one, then two, and then another five just for good measure. 

“Can you believe how long it’s been?” he asks, half because he’s genuinely in awe and half because he wants to delay putting the thing on for as long as he can. 

Harry’s eyes soften even more, if such a thing is possible, and he slides a finger down the slope of Louis’s nose. “Not really, no,” he says, and tilts his head. “We’re pretty great, you know.” 

“Oh, I know,” Louis grins. He bites his lip and leans up to kiss Harry again, his mouth open just wide enough, hoping that maybe, just maybe—

“And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” Harry says, even as he throws the sweater over his shoulder and grabs Louis’s hips. “You’re wearing it.” 

“Yes, darling,” says Louis distractedly, and turns them around to fall on the bed and take Harry with him. 

He does, in fact, end up wearing the sweater. He opens the door to the heating repair person wearing just said sweater and a very clingy Harry all over his back, and subsequently has to call up a guy to draw up an NDA. 

They also cuddle on the couch. Harry makes them lunch and hot chocolate and they watch Home Alone with Louis curled under Harry’s arm and a fire crackling away in the fireplace. Niall calls to let them know he’s managed to land safely in Ireland, and cackles for five straight minutes when Louis recounts their adventures. Louis feels warm even when it’s twelve degrees inside.

 It’s a good, good day.

*

**Seven days to Christmas**

Louis wakes up to Ed Sheeran knocking on their door. He’s standing on the doorstep, hair sticking up in all directions, smelling of booze, and holding a cat under his arm.

Louis hadn’t even known he was in England. 

“Ed?” he asks, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. He hopes it looks unimpressed, at least, but he’s been awake for all of thirty seconds and can’t quite feel his face yet. 

“Louis,” Ed grins, perfectly pleasant as always. His voice sounds shot. “Hello. Harry said you’re available for cat-sitting, so I’ve brought you a cat.” 

He bends down to set the cat – what was his name again? – down on the threshold. It looks back up at him, betrayed, licks one of its paws, and saunters right inside. 

“Okay,” Ed claps his hands cheerfully. “Great. Goodbye.” 

And he actually turns around, gets into the car he’s got idling in the front, and _leaves_. 

It’s 6:37 in the morning, Louis has been awake for two minutes, and he now has an intruder in the house.

“Harry?” he calls out, as a first instinct, not equipped to deal with situations this complicated before ten. Harry snores back in response. “Alright,” Louis mumbles, all to himself, watching as Ed’s tomcat rubs himself against Harry’s precious winged armchair. “Okay.” 

He darts back upstairs to get his phone. 

_We’re not watching your cat_ , he writes.

Ed texts him back a cat emoji, the one with heart eyes. 

_I’m throwing him out_ , Louis types, stabbing at his touchscreen as he tries to convey his righteous anger. 

_haha_ , he gets in response. Louis’s friends know him too fucking well. 

Still, Louis knows absolutely fuck-all about cats. With a heavy heart, he leans over to Harry’s side of the bed and presses a kiss against his naked shoulder. 

“Babe,” he whispers. 

“Mmrf,” is Harry’s response. He rolls further away from Louis, burrowing into his little cocoon of blankets. Considering how annoyingly morning person-y he is, it’s incredibly difficult to get him out of bed. 

“Babe, you’ve gotta help me take care of a cat.” 

“Cat?” Harry immediately opens his eyes, looking at Louis over his shoulder. He’s got pillow creases down his cheek and an impressive bedhead, but he's perfectly alert, all because Louis mentioned a feline. He tries not to take it personally. 

“Ed, uh…stopped by. He’s brought his—“

“Graham is here?” Harry sits up, and—is that really what Ed named his cat? _Graham_? 

Attuned to the sound of its name, the four-legged devil slinks into the bedroom. He doesn’t look particularly evil, to be fair, but it’s not even seven o’clock and the day’s already rolling ahead at full speed. Louis has a reason to be suspicious of everything.  “Graham,” Harry grins. “Hiiii, pal.” 

“Meow,” Graham says and, in one fluid motion, gets up on the bed. Harry coos and looks down at him with actual stars in his eyes, the way he looks at Louis across the stage when they’re playing under the open sky for sixty thousand people. 

“Hello,” Harry repeats. He presses a finger against Graham’s paw in a ridiculously adorable imitation of a handshake. The cat stacks his other paw on top of it, patting Harry’s hand, and Louis’s heart expands a little. “Where’s your dad?” 

“He left,” Louis mumbles bitterly, trying to resist nudging Harry’s hand with his nose like Graham is doing and demanding to be petted. “Didn’t even leave anything. Where’s Graham supposed to shit?” 

Harry flinches and covers the cat’s ears, scandalised. “There’s some cat stuff in the garage,” he admits. 

“What? Why?” 

Harry shrugs, sheepish, and looks back down at Graham. “You never know what can happen,” he says. 

To Louis, this sounds suspiciously like Harry has been plotting something. He lets it go, in his own interest. 

“Are you hungry?” Harry asks, and Louis looks at him to say _yes, please, starving_ like he always does, except Harry’s not talking to him. He’s got Graham sitting in his lap, tail swishing contentedly like that’s exactly where he belongs, and sniffing at Harry’s mouth. “Yeah? Was he out all night again? Does he even know you need to be fed regularly?” 

Louis is experiencing inception. 

“We’ll get you something nice,” Harry is currently promising, scratching the cat under the chin, making his eyes close in bliss. “Some tuna. Or milk, maybe. And one of those little kitty food bags.” 

Graham purrs in what seems to be enthusiastic approval. Harry drops a kiss to his wet nose, picks him up, and marches out of the bedroom, tittering all the while. 

Louis puts on some joggers and a t-shirt and goes back to bed. He piles blanket after blanket on top of himself in a bid to become a human caterpillar. Maybe by the time he’s ready to come out, he’ll have turned into a beautiful butterfly and Harry will appreciate him again. 

Louis is fully aware he’s being a child. He’s also got some very real tears stinging in the back of his throat, so. 

He hears the door open again, and footsteps. They stop at the head of the bed. Louis can _feel_ Harry’s eyes on him, probably disapproving. 

“I know you’re pouting under there,” Harry says, and he sounds much, much softer than Louis had been expecting. “I’m sorry. I know you need attention in the mornings, I got a little excited.” 

“A little,” Louis snorts, but there’s real humour creeping into his tone. He’s fucking ridiculous, Louis is. 

“ _Babe_ ,” Harry says as he flops on top of Louis’s nest. “I don’t love Graham better than you. I don’t love anybody better than you.” 

“What if I were a cat?” Louis asks stubbornly, stifling a grin into the pillow. 

Harry laughs. His head seems to be on the same level as Louis’s, on top of the blankets. “That would be very, very illegal,” he says. “Can’t own shared property with cats. Definitely can’t marry cats. Probably can’t have babies with cats, either.” 

“Science is very progressive these days.”

 “Also can’t be in a band with cats,” Harry continues like he didn’t hear. “We’d have to redo all the songs. You couldn’t write anymore because nobody would understand what you’re saying. Also cats can’t hold pens. You’d have to change your name to Louis Meowlinson…”

Louis breaks. “ _Harry_ ,” he giggles, breathless little laughs that he hides in the pillow. 

“You’re much better off staying human, really,” he concludes. A ray of daylight penetrates Louis’s cocoon as Harry tries to inconspicuously lift one corner. “You’ll get a lot more Harry kisses that way.” 

“What makes you think I want Harry kisses?” 

Harry’s face appears right in front of Louis’s, grinning maniacally. “Cause you loooove me.” 

Louis sighs. “God help me, I do.” 

Harry’s smile softens. “I love you too,” he says, leans close and kisses Louis on the nose. “Even if you do get jealous of cats.” 

“I don’t,” Louis pouts through the lie. It’s perfectly normal, he reasons. He’s very greedy about Harry whenever he gets him all to himself. 

“Okay,” Harry agrees, still smiling. “Whatever you say.” 

Louis curls into Harry’s warmth, lets himself enjoy the way he feels completely engulfed, surrounded by Harry’s body and his scent and his voice as he whispers nonsense into Louis’s ear. 

Louis _does_ need attention in the morning. Harry knows this, because Harry knows everything about Louis. He also knows just how to give it, because Harry is Louis’s goddamned soulmate. 

“I’m ridiculous,” Louis assesses into Harry’s chest. It rumbles beneath him as Harry laughs. 

“Definitely,” he agrees. “’S why I love you.” 

“Meow,” a little voice interrupts from the doorway. 

Louis sighs. “Go feed the cat.” 

“He’ll wait a little while,” Harry says, slipping his fingers under Louis’s chin and tipping his head up to kiss him. “I called Ed, by the way, he’s picking him up tonight.” 

“Meow,” Graham repeats. He sounds sad. 

“Good,” Louis says, but he finds that he doesn’t quite mean it. 

He ends up being the one to pull Harry out of bed. He swallows his pride, pours his own cereal for breakfast like the twenty-two year old millionaire he is, sits at the kitchen table, and watches Harry feed Graham. He’s got the cat poised on his lap, holding the bowl of cat food in front of him like a plate. 

Louis has to physically look away after a while. It’s fucking _adorable_ , is the thing.

“Lou,” Harry stands above him once everyone, human and cat alike, has finished eating. “We’re going out back.”

 “Who’s we?” asks Louis suspiciously.

“Graham and I,” Harry grins. “You should come join us, though. God knows what we’ll get up to if we’re left alone.” 

Louis throws an old newspaper at him. Harry runs away cackling, hugging a squeaking Graham to his chest. 

Feeling uncomfortably like he’s doing exactly what Harry wants him to, Louis shuffles into the hall and picks one of Harry’s coats off the rack. It’s warm and big and long, with sleeves that fall way past his wrists – just the way Louis likes it. He puts a beanie on, and a pair of wellies that are Harry’s, too. 

It had snowed overnight, Louis notices, and out in the garden, Harry is already lying down and attempting a snow angel. In a Burberry coat, because that’s the sort of thing Harry does. 

“You’re going to get wet, love,” Louis says as he plops down next to him. The snow underneath him shifts and melts quickly, and Louis suspects that by the time the sun comes out, it’ll be almost entirely gone. 

“’M not,” says Harry, patting together a tiny snowball to throw at Graham. The cat runs after it paws first, and Louis is charmed. “Because I’m getting up, and we’re building a snowman.” 

“We’re not building a snowman.” 

“Shh,” Harry grins as he sits up and leans over to Louis. He kisses him, deep, with chapped lips and a slick tongue, warming Louis from the inside. “Wasn’t a request,” he grins when he pulls away. Louis is understandably dazed, but he has the presence to roll his eyes and, eventually, stand up. 

“You always do that,” he grumbles. 

“Always works,” Harry smiles, and leans down to kiss him slower this time, gentler, the kind of kiss he gives Louis when they’re saying hello after being apart. A strand of his hair falls out from behind his ear and tickles Louis on the cheek. 

Louis huffs against his lips. “Are we seriously building a snowman?” 

“Yep.” 

And they do. Louis first entertains himself by throwing snow at Graham and watching him flail when it disappears back into the layer that’s covering the ground, but he eventually gets tired of throwing and Graham gets tired of chasing. He curls up on the garden swing instead, and meows periodically to let them both know he’s still there.  In the meantime, Harry runs around the garden gathering armfuls of snow and dumping them in a pile.

“What’s that for?” Louis asks. 

“I have to practice my ball rolling,” says Harry with his hands on his hips, looking at the ground with a tiny frown and seemingly unaware of what he’s just said. 

Louis bites his lip. “I’d say you’re an expert at that, darling.” 

Harry flips him off. Louis could swear he hears him mumble “you’d know” under his breath. 

“So,” Louis sticks his freezing hands into the pockets of his – Harry’s – coat. “How many balls?” 

“I was thinking three.” 

Louis nods. “Nose?” 

“Don’t need one,” Harry says. “He’ll be avant-garde.” 

“Harry,” Louis pretends to sigh, “a snowman needs a nose.” 

“Nope.”

“Yep.” 

It turns into a long, pointless discussion that Louis thoroughly enjoys every minute of. By the time they’re done arguing about hat versus no hat, the toothy winter sun has come out, warming Louis up under his coat and melting the thin layer of snow around them. 

Harry, even as he sticks his tongue out at Louis and calls him names, manages to gather up the last of his pile and make balls. 

They do build a snowman still, in the end. It’s a foot tall, and when they leave it behind and go inside, Louis could swear that Graham is laughing at them.

*

**Six days to Christmas**

It’s tree decorating day. 

Louis had not known this ten minutes ago, when he was still dreaming and dead to the world. He had not known five minutes ago, when Harry jumped on top of him and pulled him out of bed. 

He knows now. 

“Haz,” he says into the delicious eggs that Harry had painstakingly prepared for him because he’s truly, truly lovely, “we’re not even going to be here for Christmas. We don’t need a tree.” 

“We definitely do,” says Harry, calm and collected, sipping on his tea. He’s already been out for a run and had a shower, and he looks a little like a wet mouse with his hair dripping on the tabletop. 

“Why?” 

“I want one,” he smiles, like he knows that’s more than reason enough for Louis. Damn him, honestly. “It creates a homely atmosphere.” 

Louis feels a pleasant blush rise to his cheeks. He’s holding a fork to his mouth, the _home_ of his compass right in his line of vision. It’s always been home with Harry – since that ridiculously opulent flat they got together after the X Factor. Louis still remembers the feeling in his stomach, like he was falling, when he walked into the kitchen their first morning there and found the table all set for breakfast.

“Alright,” he agrees. 

Harry beams. “I’m driving,” he claps his hands and disappears up the stairs. Louis finishes his eggs in silence, and uses the time to reply to his texts – Niall and Liam checking up on them, Zayn asking what day it is, Lottie saying she’s back home safe and can’t wait to see them. It’s nice, Louis thinks, to have his phone beep with alerts and unlock it to messages from people he loves and no one else. It’s been too long. 

The drive to the Christmas Forest isn’t a long one, and Louis spends it shredding a receipt he finds in the glove compartment, throwing the pieces at Harry and yelling “it’s snowing!”. Harry smiles indulgently and keeps his eyes on the road. Harry is the best. 

“Welcome!” a young girl in a Santa hat greets them as soon as they step out of the car and into the lot. They’re both bundled up in coats and scarves and beanies, but Louis can tell she recognises them by the way her eyes widen. 

Harry smiles at her, always charming, and extends his hand. “Hello,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

“Y-you too,” she stutters out, and Louis reminds himself to take a picture with her later. 

The lot is absolutely drowning in people, families blocking the narrow alleys between the trees, children shouting in excitement and reaching for the prickly branches. Next to Louis, Harry walks with his hands in his pockets, observing the chaos. His eyes are soft.

“What are you thinking about?” Louis asks, grinning into his scarf because he already knows. 

Harry giggles and doesn’t grace Louis with an answer. He takes off down the aisle on his long, long legs, and Louis has to weave in-between people to keep up. 

He can feel more and more eyes on his back as he follows Harry and discusses the appropriate choice of tree with him. He knows it’s a question of minutes before somebody takes out their phone, before there’s the click of a camera shutter and a picture goes up on Twitter. 

And the strange thing is, that’s _fine_ now. Louis doesn’t have to sneak around anymore, hover just out of frame while the hired cameras take pictures of Harry looking tired and annoyed. 

It’s a strange feeling, but one look into Harry’s eyes tells Louis he’s thinking the same thing. The happiness and awe written in his face are enough to make Louis obnoxiously, explosively happy. 

“Which one, then?” he presses to Harry’s side. He’s looking down at a tiny Nordmann fir nestled in a pot. 

“This one,” he says, running his fingers over the soft needles. “It’s perfect.” 

Louis raises his eyebrows. “A potted tree?” 

“Yes. I can replant it after Christmas, and then it’ll grow and remind us.” 

“Of what?” Louis asks, soft, but he already knows. 

Harry beams down at him. It’s still daylight, but the fairy lights strung around the lot have been turned on already, and they shine through his hair like a halo in a thousand colours. “I really want to kiss you right now,” he whispers.

“Me too, darling,” Louis whispers back. “A few more days,” he promises. They’re getting photographed out together, buying _one_ Christmas tree. It’s not exactly going to come as a surprise, and then Louis will take Harry to the damn Trafalgar Square and kiss him until neither of them can breathe. 

“Also,” Harry says, still smiling as he turns back to the tree, “it’s tiny and perfect. Kinda reminds me of you.” 

Louis laughs a little too loudly, throws his head back and lets his breath rush out in a cloud of fog. 

It’s then that a salesperson approaches them, a middle-aged man wearing a cap and a friendly smile. As it turns out, he shares Harry’s enthusiasm for potted trees, and they chatter away while Louis pays. They load the tree into the boot, Harry promises to drive very carefully, and then there’s nothing left but to say goodbye. 

Louis spots a small gaggle of girls out of the corner of his eye, huddled to the side of the lot and whispering. They’re clutching their phones to their chests, and one of them points toward where Louis and Harry are standing. 

Louis, feeling calm and settled and pleasantly mellow, taps Harry on the shoulder. He inclines his head towards the group, and Harry nods, leading the way back through the parking lot. 

“Hello, ladies,” he says. 

“Hello,” one of them says, and even without the hat, Louis recognises her as the greeter. “We were wondering—I mean, if you’re not in a hurry, could we, um, could we get a group picture?” 

Louis smiles, about to answer, but it seems that she’s not done. “With both of you?” 

Harry catches Louis’s eye. He’s got his eyebrows raised, a mischievous quirk to his lips like he’s sixteen again and about to hide Liam’s hair straightener. _We can_ , his expression says. 

They can, indeed.

*

“We can’t possibly cram all of this on there.”

“Nonsense,” says Harry, covered head to toe in tinsel. (That may or may not be Louis’s fault.) “It fit last year.” 

Louis lifts yet another identical angel ornament to his eyes. “We had a ten-foot fir last year.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” Harry says, stubborn, with his bottom lip sticking out in a pout. He’s wearing the giraffe sweater and a pair of boxers, and he looks simultaneously good enough to eat and extremely cuddlable. He makes Louis’s life so very difficult. “Let’s do it. Tinsel.” 

“Come here first,” Louis smiles. 

Harry raises his eyebrows but complies, walking over and plopping down in Louis’s lap. He looks soft and happy and well-rested when he grins, and his dimples come out in full force. “What’s up?” he asks, donning a terrible American accent. Louis loves him.

“I love you,” he says. 

Harry lights up, like he does every time Louis says something even remotely soppy. “I love you too,” he presses into Louis’s lips along with a kiss. “This Christmas is going to be so good.” 

“You think so?” 

“Obviously,” Harry smiles. He runs a hand through Louis’s hair, down his cheek, over his neck. His palm is warm. Soothing. “It’s going to snow properly, and it’ll be so nice up North. Imagine what Ernie and Doris are going to do when they touch it for the first time.”

Louis definitely has stars in his eyes when he looks up at Harry. “We’ll have to see if we can pry them away from mum.” 

“Please,” Harry grins. “They love me.” 

He’s right, of course. The babies absolutely adore him, as do all of Louis’s sisters. It’s probably a family thing. “God knows why,” Louis says softly, teasing. 

“Twat,” Harry whispers, sweet as ever, and kisses him again. Louis runs his hands up Harry’s bare legs, his hips, and up under his sweater. His skin feels soft, as always, warm and supple under Louis’s. 

He can’t actually help it when he digs his fingers in just a little, making Harry squeak and pull away. His expression is indignant, but before he can come out with something ridiculous and adorable like he always does, Louis wiggles his fingers and sends him into a fit of giggles. 

“Lou,” he hiccups, laughing as he smacks Louis on the shoulder. “Come on.” 

“Come on what?” Louis grins as he tickles faster. Harry shrieks and wiggles on Louis’s lap, and Louis watches in delight as his cheeks heat up to a pretty apple red. 

“I hate you,” Harry laughs. Louis is still tickling him, and he’s squirming like a caught fish, but he presses closer instead of pulling away.

From there, Louis has about two seconds to get his bearings before he’s lying down on the couch with a victorious Harry straddling his hips. 

“There,” he says, sounding every bit like a vengeful toddler. 

“You’re adorable,” Louis tells him, even as he slowly moves his hands down to protect his vulnerable sides. 

“I know,” says Harry. He’s got a flush all the way down his neck, disappearing under the collar of his ridiculous sweater, and his eyes sparkle like fairy lights. Louis watches him, equal parts endeared and paranoid, as he settles down and puts a hand on Louis’s chest. 

Louis’s heart meets his open palm with a steady _thump-thump-thump_. Harry smiles. Something in his expression shifts, and Louis suddenly knows he’s not in danger of getting tickled anymore. 

“What?” he asks quietly. Harry looks him in the eye; he’s got the softest look on his face, pink mouth stretched into a smile. 

“Not much,” he shrugs. The sweater slips lower down one of his shoulders. “This is really nice.” 

Louis raises an eyebrow. “You on top of me?” 

Harry wiggles his hips some more, pressing down on Louis’s crotch because he’s an arsehole. “You know what I mean,” he says, and his expression stays sweet. He plucks a snowflake ornament from the coffee table and sets it on Louis’s chest. “I love spending Christmas with you.” 

Louis sinks deeper into the sofa cushions. He feels sweet and calm and too big for his body, like maybe he’d like to become the air in the room just so he could touch Harry always. He wraps his own hand around Harry’s, still resting over his heart.

“I know, darling,” he says. “Me too,” and he means every word. He wouldn’t change this for anything – not Harry putting on carols at seven in the morning, not sampling ten different batches of gingerbread because Harry can’t decide between them, and not shopping for their ridiculous, potted dwarf of a tree.

It’s just—carefree. Slowly, as he realises this is actually happening more and more every day, Louis has stopped looking over his shoulder. He’s stopped expecting strange calls chastising him for things he didn’t even do. The feeling of being chased is a difficult thing to unlearn, but he’s been making progress. 

He wakes up every morning to Harry’s face smushed into the pillow, with lint on his lashes and sun in his hair, and his first thought is _look at us. We made it_. 

On top of him, Harry yawns, stretching his arms towards the ceiling like a kitten. His sweater rides up, and Louis has enough time to reach out and stroke a finger over one of his laurel leaves. 

“I can’t fall asleep yet,” Harry pouts at no one in particular. “We have to decorate the tree.” 

Louis himself is feeling a little hazy. They’ve got a fire going in the fireplace, radiating heat that makes him pleasantly sleepy, and Harry’s broken out his favourite Christmas-scented candles. It’s a picture straight out of a postcard. 

“In a minute,” he promises, and tugs on the hem of Harry’s sweater until he gives in and stretches out on top of Louis. He’s heavy, as always, breathing into Louis’s neck until it’s damp, but Louis has him in his arms. There’s nothing better than that. 

“What’re we doing tomorrow?” he asks into Harry’s hair, hoping the answer will be _nothing_. 

“Dunno,” Harry yawns. “Do you have all your presents? ‘Cause I need to get mine for Niall’s secret Santa thing.” 

Louis hasn’t really given the secret Santa much thought. He’s been collecting Harry’s presents since February, knick-knacks from all over the world he’d seen and thought Harry would love, and things he’d had to hunt down through eBay and resellers and shady Russian websites. He could just use one of those, but somehow, he’s sure that Niall would know. Louis hates disappointing Niall; it’s a feeling rather like taking sweets away from a small child. 

“Yeah, I need one of those,” he says in the end. “We’re going to get ambushed if we just walk into a shop, though.” 

Harry hums in agreement. “I’ll make some calls tomorrow,” he promises. He burrows into Louis a little more, the long lines of his body fitting perfectly into Louis’s. 

Louis lets his eyes fall closed, opening them back up every once in a while to take in the orange glow of the living room, soft shadows crawling up the walls. 

It’s only their second Christmas here, but Louis can’t imagine being anywhere else. This house has seen them at their best and their worst, has been home to them both when the other was away. Louis can’t wait for them to make their own Christmas traditions, to fill up all the empty rooms with light and laughter and chase little feet all over the place. 

It’s their time, now. They’re going to have it all.

“Hey, Harry?” 

Harry chuckles into Louis’s neck a little, a tired little thing. He’s about to fall asleep, Louis knows. “Me too, Lou. I can’t wait.” 

Louis grins. He presses a kiss to Harry’s bare shoulder, wraps his arms tighter around his boy, and lets himself drift off. 

The tree will wait.

*

**Four days to Christmas**

Louis is in love. 

He’s probably a little too in love for it to be considered healthy, but there’s really no helping it when he’s got the best spouse in the world. Harry is one of a kind. 

“What is this?” he asks when he walks into the kitchen, just off the phone with his mum. He’d spent half an hour assuring her they’re both alright, he’ll drive safe, and yes, he’s packed enough underwear – he’s feeling a little worn out, fighting an ache that seems to have settled in his lower back. 

Harry’s still got his pink apron on, hands clasped behind his back and rocking on his heels. The kitchen is spotless around him. 

“It’s dinner,” he says, and the _duh_ is implied. “You said you were hungry.” 

“Uh,” Louis stammers, taking in the table – the steaming food, the wine. The _candles_. “I am.” 

“Good,” Harry grins. “Sit down, then.” 

Louis does, mostly on autopilot. He sees from up close that the tablecloth is dark green, made of heavy fabric that hangs over the edge in thick folds, the kind that Harry usually uses when they’ve got company he wants to impress. The candlelight breaks through the wine glasses in little segments, painting the table, and Louis is confused. 

Harry leaves, presumably to put his apron in the wash, and when he comes back, Louis takes in his clothes – a soft, black jumper and blue jeans. They’re different to what he’d been wearing earlier in the day, and honestly, how had Louis not _noticed_.  “What’s all this for, then?” he asks, a little less dazed. He takes in some more detail – the meticulously sharp fold in the napkins, the gleaming cutlery, the plates Harry had gotten from his nan when they moved in here. 

“You,” Harry answers, with a hint of a smile playing around the corner of his mouth. 

“Why?” 

Harry grins now, pulls out his own chair across from Louis. His feet immediately lock around Louis’s ankle. “Just ‘cause,” he shrugs. “We’re not going to get much alone time until after…you know.”

Oh. 

_Oh._

“And I wanted to, uh,” he continues, running a hand through his hair and messing up the curls, “I wanted to do this while it’s still ours, you know?” 

“Harry,” Louis says, and he can feel his voice is about break before it does. “Love. _Sweetheart_. It will always be ours. Nobody else’s.”

 “I know,” Harry mumbles, looking down at his empty plate. He’s fiddling with his rings, and his grin is gone. “But we don’t know what it’ll be like. It could change us, and I—“ he looks up, then, and Louis’s heart skips a beat at the emotion in his eyes, “I’m scared,” he admits.

Louis abandons his seat and rounds the table, crouches down next to Harry’s chair. Harry’s hand automatically finds one of his. 

“So am I,” Louis says. “I’m terrified, but look at us. Look at what we’ve been through, darling, and look how strong we made it out the other end. I’m yours, and you’re mine, and this is _ours_ , no matter how many people will want to stick their noses in it.” 

Harry laughs a little. The candlelight catches his eyes just so, glistening off the tears he hasn’t let fall. “I know,” he says. “I love you.” 

Louis nods, and discovers that his own throat is suspiciously tight. “I love you too. I’ll look out for you, and you’ll look out for me, and we’ll be absolutely golden.” 

“I’m so excited,” Harry says. “I know I’m bawling about it, but I really am.” 

“I know,” Louis grins. “So am I. We’ll be amazing.”

“The next Brangelina, Liam says.” 

Louis lets a couple of tears fall as he laughs. “Better, even. Remember the first thing you said when we decided this was happening?” 

“We’ll be able to help so many people,” Harry repeats what he’d said all those months ago, in a high-rise office building in LA that was an end and a beginning. “Sounds like I was a bit full of myself.” 

“A bit,” Louis laughs, and squeezes Harry’s hand to let him know he doesn’t mean a word. “But you were right, too. There are so many people like us out there, and if we help one of them, all of this will have been worth it.” 

“It’s worth it anyway,” says Harry, looking into Louis’s eyes. He’s untucked his hair from behind his ear, and it falls down in silky strands to obscure his face. He looks so painfully young, even after everything. Louis’s strong, strong boy. “Just for the two of us. We get to be selfish for a little while.” 

Louis wants to drown Harry in kisses, tell him that selfish is the last thing he’ll ever be, but—he knows what Harry means. He knows, and he feels the same, and Harry knows that in return. “Just for the two of us,” he repeats instead, in a whisper so low it can barely be heard over the crackling fire. He kisses the back of Harry’s hand. “You and I.” 

Harry smiles. Louis can tell he’s two seconds away from singing the song, so he leans up instead to kiss him. 

It’s a little wet with the tear tracks on both their cheeks, but Louis doesn’t want to stop, if only for the way Harry’s stroking his face, with hands shaking and urgent and just a little desperate. He cards his hands through Harry’s hair, rubs his back, anything to let him know that they’re as okay as they’ve ever been. 

The stars are back in Harry’s eyes when they pull apart, his fingers reverent on Louis’s cheeks. 

“Can you imagine doing that on stage?” he asks.

Louis grins at him, lets all of what he’s feeling show right there on his face. “ _Really_?” 

Harry shrugs, butting their foreheads together gently. “Just once. Wanna know what it’s like.” 

Louis thinks he knows where Harry’s coming from. There’s nothing quite like being on stage, feeling like he’s going to shake apart with nerves and high on adrenaline at the same time, and there’s nothing quite like kissing Harry, the butterflies in his stomach that make Louis feel light enough to fly. 

He pretends to think about it. “There might be quite a few scandalised parents.” Harry pouts. Louis pecks his bottom lip, just because he can. “Don’t mind them, though. Only have eyes for you anyway.” 

“You’re ridiculous,” Harry giggles, returning the peck and lingering. His lips are so soft Louis barely feels them on his, and he tastes like the dinner he’s probably been tasting as he cooked. 

“You know,” Louis says once he’s back in a crouch, looking all the way up at Harry. “I kind of want to propose to you again, while I’m down here.” 

Harry’s grin brightens. “For the seventh time? Really?” he asks, and of course he keeps count. 

“Never enough,” Louis shrugs. Harry’s hand is still in his, a little warmer than before, now that the fear’s been chased away. Louis brings it to his lips again, pressing a kiss to the cross. “Harry Edward Styles. It’s been a couple of months since I last did this, so forgive me if I’m a little rusty…” 

Harry’s got his free hand over his face, laughing, but Louis can see him looking through his fingers. 

“We’ve accomplished a lot as a couple. We’ve been together for four years, and we definitely hold some sort of record for how many times we’ve had people walk in on us having sex.” 

“Niall’s been counting,” Harry interrupts. “We should ask him.” 

Louis knows he’s not expected to have an answer. He shuffles closer to Harry’s chair instead, taking weight off his knee. “My point was going to be, I love you very much. I also kind of definitely want to have your babies, so, um. Marry me?” 

Louis thinks it says something about him that he’s never done the serious proposal thing right – the first time had been in January two years ago, when Harry had finally come home, and Louis threw himself around his neck and asked him through what he won’t ever admit were tears. There was also that time they snuck out to the zoo incognito and Louis was strangely charmed by a pair of monkeys picking bugs out of each other’s fur. And that time on the tour bus after they won a round of FIFA together and the lads wouldn’t stop teasing. 

So, yeah. Louis is not the best at proposing seriously, but Harry tells him he’s alright anyway. He always says yes, at least. 

“If you insist,” Harry says, and Louis suspects he feels the same shivery warmth spill through his veins. _That’s love_ , he’d said years ago, seventeen and leaning over the breakfast table to give Louis a kiss. This is where they’ve been going, swimming against the tide with everything they had, and they’ve finally arrived. “I’ll marry you. We should probably start planning that, by the way.” 

Louis smiles, leans up for another kiss. He’s been feeling the same since his mum’s wedding – like that’s exactly what he wants, a warm day spent outside with his friends, his family, with Harry, so happy he’ll be walking on air. _This’ll be us,_ he’d whispered to Harry when he caught him stealing cakes from the smorgasbord. _Soon_.

“After the tour,” he says. “We’ll leave the songwriting to Liam and jet off for a honeymoon.” 

“It’s a deal,” Harry says, and seals it with a kiss. 

They finally get to eating, then, and Harry frowns a little when he realises the meat has gone cold. He sticks it in the oven for a few minutes, and it’s only then that the scent of it registers with Louis.

“Marmite chicken? Really?” 

“It’s your favourite,” Harry says defensively, like Louis is _attacking_ him for cooking his favourite meal.

“You know it is,” says Louis, and he crosses the kitchen to cage Harry in against the counter. “Thank you, love.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

Louis gives him another kiss, and another, feeling like he can’t stop now that he’s professed his love twenty times over on their kitchen floor. Harry welcomes him with a smile and a warm embrace. 

“You know,” he leans to Louis’s ear, “we should take this to the bedroom after we’ve actually eaten. We’re going to be sharing a house with six children come tomorrow.” 

“Like that’s ever stopped you,” Louis smirks, thinking back to all the visits they’ve paid his mum over the years. Harry used to be insatiable – not that he’s much better now, once he gets going. 

Harry gasps in mock offence and swats Louis on the bum with a kitchen towel. Louis runs away shrieking, straight for the living room, and jumps all over the furniture while Harry tries to grab him. 

The chicken burns just a tad. It’s still the best thing Louis has ever eaten.

*

**Two days to Christmas**

“Baaaaah.” 

“Thank you, Ernie.” 

“Shh,” Harry hisses. “Let him talk.” 

“He’s ten months old, Haz. He can’t talk.” 

“Bloo,” Ernest says in what Louis assumes is protest. Louis grins down at him. 

“They’re so adorable,” Harry pouts, for what has to be the seventeenth time today. “I want ten.” 

“I’m telling you, ten is too many,” Louis says. He reaches out to boop Ernie’s nose, but Ernie has other ideas and puts Louis’s finger in his mouth instead. Louis loves him so much he’s not even grossed out. “There were five of us, and we gave mum and dad grey hair at thirty.”

Harry is settled in the armchair with Doris, twisted up like a pretzel so he can comfortably sit her on his lap. His eyes are sparkling so bright they might as well be made of stars. 

“Nope,” he says as he attempts to make a braid out of her downy hair. “Tell him ten’s not too much, Dory. He’ll listen to you.” 

“Te!” says Doris and claps her hands. The smile Harry gives her is enough to raise Louis’s insulin levels on the spot.

“Teeeh,” Ernest repeats as they look at each other. They have those moments sometimes, when they seem to get on the same wavelength and proceed to stare at each other like adorable baby owls. 

Doris blinks, big blue eyes closing and opening again as if in slow motion, and yawns. They all get an excellent view of her misshapen baby teeth, and Harry, as always, seems to find it endearing. 

“Oh,” he coos, “are you still tired, little baby? D’you wanna go back to bed?” 

It’s only been a half hour since they’ve woken up, and about fifteen minutes since Louis and Harry fed them, but Louis is not entirely sure about the circadian rhythm of babies. Maybe they could go back to sleep again, and then Louis himself could take a nap while the house is blissfully quiet. 

Doris, however, seems to have other plans. She waves her arms in the air, buckling until Harry has no choice but to set her back on the carpet. She then crawls to Ernest, grabs a rattler, and waves it in his face. Ernie doesn’t seem perturbed at all. 

While the babies are making their own fun, Harry crawls off the armchair and joins Louis on the floor. His back pops as he lies down and stretches out, and Louis makes a mental note to rub it for him later. 

“What do you think they’re doing?” Harry asks as he lays his head on Louis’s shoulder and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Do you think they understand each other? Is there, like, a universal baby language?” 

Louis smiles involuntarily at having Harry so close. “Probably. They could be plotting the end of the world, and we’d never know.” 

“Owee,” Ernie says. Louis likes to imagine it’s an attempt to pronounce his sister’s name. 

“God,” he says as he suddenly realises, “they’re going to be talking soon. And walking. And going off to kindergarten, oh God.” 

Harry chuckles. “You’ll be the first one mum calls when they start talking, babe,” he says, and puts an arm around Louis’s waist. “Don’t worry about the rest. It’ll take a while.” 

“But they’ve grown so fast,” Louis whispers, realising he sounds exactly like his mother. 

“Brrm,” Doris says. She abandons the rattle and crawls to Louis. “Wa?” 

“I’m okay, princess,” Louis beams at her. “Thank you.” 

She gives him a nod far more serious than a ten-month-old should be capable of, “Blep.” 

As they watch her crawl back on chubby hands and knees, Harry leans his forehead against Louis’s temple. “You can’t seriously tell me you don’t want ten of them.” 

“Five.” 

“Nine?” Harry’s puppy eyes come out in full force. 

“Six,” Louis says, “and let’s leave it open to negotiation once we actually have to take care of them twenty-four seven.” 

“Six sounds alright,” Harry concedes, but Louis could swear he hears him muttering “ten” under his breath. “How many do you think are the lads going to have?” 

Louis blinks. “Why?” 

“Just, you know,” Harry shrugs one shoulder, “we’ll need to coordinate playdates and stuff. Would be nicer if they were all roughly the same age.” 

“I…” Louis falters. “I don’t know. Don’t want to think about the lads making babies, to be honest.” 

Harry giggles. “We’ll probably be the first ones, anyway.” 

Now that, Louis is definitely sure about. “Hear that?” he turns to Ernie, “You’ll be an uncle in a couple of years.” 

“Baw.” 

“Oh my _God_ , you’re right,” Harry gasps, and dissolves into fresh peals of laughter. “That’s. That’s so weird.” 

Louis watches him fondly as he giggles face-down into the carpet, kicking his legs. Ernest and Doris seem very concerned, and they flock to Louis to watch. 

“Look at your brother,” Louis sighs through the ridiculous smile he’s wearing, “he’s laughing at you for being babies.” 

Harry immediately cuts off. “I’m not!” he mumbles into the carpet. 

“Awee?” Doris titters, crawling over to him. She lights up when she realises she has access to all of Harry’s hair, and immediately sits down to start pulling. Louis laughs at Harry’s groans for a minute, but in the end, he sits up and moves closer, just behind Doris. 

“Not so rough, darling,” he tells her, tickling her tightly clenched fists until she lets go. “Look.” 

He takes a strand of Harry’s hair and wraps it around her wrist. She looks on, interested, as he lets it go so that it springs away and unravels. She squeals in delight, clapping her hands, and Ernest sidles up to them to watch, too. 

Louis tries everything he can think of – he braids Harry’s hair, makes a knot and lets it spring loose, takes a strand and tickles Ernest’s little socked foot with it – until the two of them have piled on Louis’s lap into one ball of adorable giggly baby. Harry turns his head at some point and watches them, indulgent as Louis pulls and prods.

They’re only interrupted when Gemma and the girls come back. They bring cold wind and snow in with them, dripping with shopping bags, and all of them let out a simultaneous _aaw_ when they look into the living room.

“Hii,” Harry greets them even though he can’t raise his head off the carpet just yet. “How’s everyone?” 

The twins are out of their coats first, and they run in to tell them all about the Santa sleigh that’s been put up at the shopping centre. To do this, they decide to climb on top of Harry, and he can’t do much more than make amicable sounds as they go through their story. 

“Hey, Lou,” Gemma says from above him. “Hey, Ernie and Dory.” 

“Hi.”

 The babies look up at her with matching toothless grins of delight. They love Gemma the best out of everyone – mostly because her hair is a different colour every time they see her.

“Want me to take these little monkeys off your hands?” she asks as she crouches next to them. As it turns out, she doesn’t even need to ask – both Ernest and Doris ambush her immediately, crawling up into her lap and fighting for her attention.

When Phoebe and Daisy finally let Harry up for air, he rolls over and looks at Louis, grinning, even as rumpled as he is. 

“Okay?” Louis asks. 

“Course.” 

He helps Harry up, and they excuse themselves to step out into the back garden for a little while. Louis lights one up and tries to ignore Harry’s little frown. 

“Two days to go,” Harry says then, idly, into the dark evening. He sounds aloof, like he’s just counting down the time to Christmas, but Louis can easily pinpoint the tension in the line of his shoulders. 

“Two days,” Louis repeats, breathing out smoke and looking up at the stars. “And then it’s over.” 

“Is it, though?” Harry turns to him. He’s got a harsh line written between his brows, a stark contrast to the happy expression he wore back inside. 

“Of course it is, Haz, come on.” 

Harry huffs. His breath turns into fog and mixes with Louis’s cigarette smoke. “I know,” he admits, and his shoulders droop a little, “I’m just nervous.” 

“So am I,” Louis says. “So is everyone. Gem’s been all shifty-eyed since yesterday.” 

“She has,” Harry agrees, and laughs. “She thinks I don’t see her when she looks at me like I’m about to go to war.” 

“The war’s over now,” Louis says. “Time for peace, innit?” 

Harry smiles. He steps closer, steals Louis’s cigarette, and puts it out in the snow. “Very poetic,” he says. “You should write songs.” 

Louis is a second away from sticking out his tongue and stuffing some snow behind Harry’s collar, just to rile him up, but he can tell they’re still on thin ice. He chooses instead to loop his arm through Harry’s, slowing his nervous pacing. 

“No matter what happens,” he says, and watches as Harry turns to him with earnest eyes, “we’re going to be perfect. We’ll call the lads after we put it up, and we’ll have our entire family with us. Plenty of shoulders to cry on if it all goes wrong.” 

“It won’t,” Harry says, face shrouded by the darkness. He sounds convinced – that’s what Louis had been going for. “It won’t go wrong. Everything will turn out right.” 

Louis smiles. “That’s what I want to hear,” he says, and risks a closed-mouthed peck, even with cigarette breath. Harry, to his surprise, takes his hands out of his pockets and wraps them around Louis’s waist, opening his lips until they’re kissing in earnest. His nose is cold against Louis’s cheek, and his lips are chapped, but Louis feels his knees go weak with the intent behind the kiss.   He got so, so lucky in life, somehow. 

“Oi, lovebirds!” somebody shouts from the back door. “We’re hungry!” 

When Louis squints through the dark, he thinks he can make out Lottie’s bright blonde hair. “Then make something!” he shouts back, even as Harry giggles against his shoulder and starts pulling him back home. 

“Harry is the best cook, though,” she crosses her arms. Louis doesn’t bother arguing any further – he knows that what Lottie wants, she gets, and also that complimenting his cooking is the quickest way to Harry’s heart. 

Gemma and Fizzy ambush them once they come inside with a request for cheese toasties. Louis had promised mum he’d feed them all something _nice_ , but really, what’s nicer than bread and cheese?

“Cheese toasties it is,” Harry agrees, and leads the cavalry into the kitchen. 

It’s quite a ridiculous sight, all of their siblings packed behind the kitchen table. It makes Louis ache with nostalgia for the family dinners they used to have before all this started, before he left home and never came back again.

 A piece of his heart will always, always belong here – but he’s found a new home now.

Said home is currently sticking cheese wrappers on his face to make the babies laugh. 

“Need any help, babe?” Louis asks, already moving around Harry and further down the counter to get the—

“Baby food,” Harry says, trying to pick a piece of cheddar out of his hair. “Thank you.” 

Louis hums and goes about uncapping the tiny bottles. 

They manage, with only a few minor disasters, to feed everyone. Louis can’t wipe the smile off his face as he scrubs mashed peas off the table and very sternly tells Daisy to stop playing with her cheese. He’s still grinning when it’s time to bathe the babies and put them to bed, making ridiculous faces at Harry, who’s trying to button Ernest’s pyjamas on the other changing table. 

They’ve actually got this, he can’t stop thinking. They’ll make kickass parents. 

_Their_ parents make it back around nine, all giggling from the wine they probably had with dinner, and usher the twins to bed. Lottie and Fizzy leave soon after to get their _beauty sleep_ , though Louis mostly suspects they’ll be staying up giggling about something or other until two in the morning. 

Louis cracks open a well-deserved beer and settles on the sofa. Harry joins him not a minute later, slumping into Louis’s side with a groan. 

“’M tired,” he mumbles. Louis immediately twines his hand into Harry’s curls, scratching his scalp gently. 

“Aaw,” he coos, ignoring Harry’s indignant huff. “We did do a lot today. Should probably turn in, the babies are going to wake us up in the middle of the night anyway.” 

It is an unfortunate arrangement, sharing a room with Ernest and Doris, but Harry had volunteered both of them as soon as they stepped foot into the house.

“Hmm,” Harry hums, resting his head on Louis’s shoulder. 

“Does your back hurt?” asks Louis. It tends to do that in the evenings, especially when they’ve been on their feet all day, but Harry never complains. 

“It’s fine,” he promises this time. He slurs the words together, quickly falling into sleep.

“Come to bed then, darling,” Louis whispers, sets his bottle down and stands up, wrapping a hand around Harry’s waist and supporting him while they climb up the stairs. Harry falls into the sheets still dressed and immediately snuggles up to a pillow. Louis doesn’t have the heart to wake him up any more. He tugs off Harry’s trousers the best he can, and pulls his shirt open so that he isn’t lying on the buttons. 

Louis foregoes brushing his teeth, longing for the warmth of the bed, and instead slips under the covers and towards his boy. Harry snuggles into him, back against Louis’s chest, and lets out one last big sigh before he falls asleep.

“Goodnight, love,” Louis whispers into his hair with a grin. “Sweet dreams.” 

Harry snuffles. Over in one of the cribs, Doris rolls over with a little yelp, clenching her tiny fists as she dreams. Louis watches her until all the midnight blue tones in the room blur together in front of his eyes. 

He yawns and pulls the covers higher. He feels satisfied and tired in the best way, with an ache in his bones that a good sleep will chase away.

As he closes his eyes, he thinks of Christmas, of Harry, of fairy lights strung against the backdrop of a starry sky; of laughter and light and love and being woken up at five in the morning to come and look at the presents.

He dreams of the future.

*

**One day to Christmas**

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Louis grumbles, trying not to stumble as he slowly slides forward. “I hate this.” 

“You love it,” Harry grins from Louis’s side, where he’s keeping a steady hand on Louis’s waist and making sure he doesn’t fall on his nose. He sounds awfully sure of himself, and Louis hates that he’s right. 

It’s beautiful out here, even if it is six in the morning and Louis was ready to commit homicide when Harry pulled him out of bed, whispering a _happy birthday_. The surface of the lake is solid underneath them, frozen into a slab of ice. Their voices echo far into the distance, carried away by the wind, but nobody’s there to care. They’re alone. 

Still, Louis _is_ incredibly shit at skating. He doesn’t appreciate Harry being this smug about having one skating scene in a music video.

“Let’s go a little bit further, come on,” he says and propels himself forward. The tails of his open coat billow behind him. 

Louis, feeling remarkably like a baby deer, stops and crosses his arms. “Come and hold my hand, arsehole.” 

Harry turns around in one fluid movement. He’s laughing as he makes his way back to Louis; he looks pale, almost ethereal in the weak winter morning light. Louis feels a little like he’s in a fairytale. 

Once he’s got Harry’s gloved hand safely in his, he moves forward with a little more certainty. He tries very hard to not think about all of his weight resting on two very thin blades.

“How do you not know how to skate, anyway?” Harry giggles. 

“I know how to skate,” Louis retorts, carefully watching his feet. “It’s just been a while, is all.” 

“How long is a while?” 

“Dunno,” Louis shrugs, “six years?” 

In truth, it’s probably been even longer. Louis is used to playing footy every day, running around and lifting his knees. This strange fluidity of movement that skating requires feels foreign to him. 

It’s made a little better by Harry’s hands constantly on him, warm and sure and holding him up without making Louis feel incompetent. 

“Where are we going, then?” he asks as they slide further and further away from the shore. 

“Somewhere,” Harry says, mysterious, then bursts into laughter. He steers to the right, turning until they’re heading back where they came from, and Louis follows. 

They probably spend hours like that, with Harry running away too fast and Louis racing after him until he realises he’s on his own. His knees stop feeling like jello eventually, supporting him as he copies Harry’s sharp twists and turns. The sparse winter sun comes out from behind the clouds, warming the air of a beautiful Christmas Eve.

It’s around eight that other people start showing up, families with red cold-bitten cheeks and children bundled up in coats and scarves. Harry gets that _look_ on his face again, the one he’s got every time somebody is being domestic around him. He keeps a light hand on Louis’s waist as they skate in circles and diagonals and somewhat straight lines, but his eyes are trained far into the distance, watching a pair of kids no older that six amble onto the ice and fall immediately. He jerks when he sees them hit the surface, like he wants to skate over and help them up. 

Louis spots his geography teacher just as they’re getting ready to leave. He hasn’t seen her in six years, but she doesn’t seem to have changed at all – her silver hair is still held up in a meticulous bun on the top of her head, and she carries herself regally, back ramrod straight even though her shoulders are wrapped in a heavy pashmina. 

Except now, unlike the last time Louis had seen her, she’s also wearing a smile. She’s holding the hands of two children, her grandkids, Louis assumes, and gliding across the ice carefully.

“What a small world,” Louis mumbles. 

“What’s that?” Harry asks.

Louis shakes his head. “Nothing, just,” he waves a hand, “my old geography teacher is here.” 

Harry’s heard about her. “Is she really?” he asks. “You should go say hi!” 

And the thing is, Louis actually contemplates it. It’s half wanting to show off, to erase the old hurt, to make her look at Louis and admit that he’s worth something; and half desire to go back to his school years, just for a while. Everything has changed around him while he wasn’t looking, it seems, but she’s still the same. 

“I should,” he nods. “Can you come with me?” 

Harry squeezes his hand wordlessly and follows when Louis takes off. It’s only seconds to that side of the lake, and then Louis is carefully tapping her on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” he says, and is shocked to realise how young his voice sounds. “Mrs. Carrigan?” 

She turns around, still with a smile on her face. It turns sour when she takes him in.   “Mister Tomlinson,” she says, short. “What a pleasure.” 

Louis holds back a snort. “I’m sorry to barge in on your family time,” he nods to the little girls who are looking up at him with wide eyes. “I just wanted to say hello.”

 He can feel Harry hovering right behind him, waiting on Louis’s cue before he does anything.

Mrs. Carrigan’s eyebrows shoot up, like they used to every time she would chastise him for not completing his homework on time, but the harsh angles of her face soften a little. “Hello, then,” she says. “How are you?” 

“Very well, thank you,” says Louis, holding his hands behind his back and feeling a little like he’s speaking to royalty, someone untouchable. “And yourself?” 

The words feel heavy on his tongue, unfamiliar. He doesn’t talk like this, ever, but somehow, it seems important to get this one right. 

“Quite alright,” she says, with a curious tilt to her head. “I’m going into retirement after the spring semester.” 

Before Louis can come up with a response that’s not outright rude, one of the little girls clears her throat. She’s not that little, Louis realises as he looks closer – it’s just the fluffy winter jacket and hat that make her look small. 

“Excuse me,” she says, adorably polite even as her voice shakes. “You’re Louis Tomlinson.” 

He smiles at her. “That I am. What’s your name?” 

“I’m Annabelle,” she says. “And that’s Lily,” she points to the other girl, who Louis assumes to be her sister. “We think you’re really cool.” 

Harry snorts somewhere behind him, and Louis can’t help a little chuckle of his own. Acutely aware of Mrs. Carrigan’s sharp eyes on him, he goes down on one knee, wobbling all the way.

“Can I tell you a secret?” he asks, looking into her big, big eyes. They’re bright with excitement, and a second pair soon joins them as Lily lets go of her grandmother’s hand and stumbles closer to listen in. 

“Of course,” says Annabelle, hushed. 

“Well, the secret is,” he trails off, leaving room for a pregnant pause, “I’m not very cool at all.” 

He’s had wittier moments, but the girls still seem delighted, pressing their gloved hands to their faces as they giggle. 

“Honestly,” Louis says, solemn. “I’m rubbish at skating, for example. Almost fell right on me bum this morning.” 

They giggle some more, and Louis risks a sneaky glance at Mrs. Carrigan. She’s looking pointedly into the distance, but she seems to have softened just a little more. Louis counts that as a win. 

“You seem really good at it,” Lily says suddenly, shy as she delivers the compliment. 

“Thank you,” Louis smiles. “I have a very good teacher.” He jerks his chin in Harry’s direction, winking at them both. They look over to where Harry’s drawing circles in the ice with his skates, and he waves at them with a silly smile. 

“ _Is that Harry_?” Annabelle whispers. Her eyes have gone ever rounder. 

“That’s Harry, yes. D’you want to say hi?” 

“Oh, can we?” 

In lieu of a response, Louis calls out to his fiancé. He comes gliding up to them like an elegant crow, all billowing coat and the scarf draped over his shoulders that serves no actual purpose. 

He introduces himself to Mrs. Carrigan first, holding out a friendly hand. Louis watches as some more of her reserve melts away in the face of Harry’s dimply, boyish charm. 

“Hello,” he says to the girls then, and plops down on the ice right next to Louis. “I’m Harry.”

Louis bites down on his stupid grin. It’s been four years, and he should not find every single thing Harry does endearing anymore, but, alas, here he is.

“We know,” Annabelle nods solemnly. “Louis told us.” 

Harry throws his head back, delighted, and laughs. 

Louis is about to start in on more conversation, thoroughly charmed by the brash little girls, but Mrs. Carrigan’s voice interrupts him. 

“Girls,” she says, and Louis has a sudden flashback to her standing in front of the class, listing the fifty US states, “it’s almost time to go.” She doesn’t sound unkind – not like she did when Louis would throw spitballs instead of studying the South Equatorial Current and pass notes halfway across the class. 

Annabelle nods at that, and takes her sister’s hand. “Could we take a picture with you? Lily really wants to, but she’s shy.” 

Harry jumps in immediately, “Oh, there’s nothing to be shy about. We’re silly, honestly. Look,” and he pulls a face. 

It has the desired effect – Lily giggles, gliding a little closer on her blue skates. 

“Of course you can take a picture,” Louis tells Annabelle in the meantime. “Do you have anything to take it with?” 

She nods. She lets go of Lily’s hand and slides instead to Mrs. Carrigan, tugging on her sleeve. “Nana,” she says, “come take our picture.” 

“What do you need a picture for?” she asks, brisk. Louis feels two inches tall. 

Annabelle blinks. “I want to remember meeting Louis and Harry from One Direction. And I want to remember how nice they were.” 

Louis quite possibly blushes. Harry, who is engaged in a lively conversation with Lily, only grins wider. 

Mrs. Carrigan sighs and, to Louis’s surprise, takes a phone out of her coat pocket. Louis turns around to face her, Harry next to him, and they wait until the girls have positioned themselves between the two of them. 

“Ready?” Mrs. Carrigan asks, and just as she presses the shutter button, Annabelle hugs Louis tight around the neck and presses their faces together. Louis is surprised for a split second, and then he bursts out laughing – what a picture that must be. Mrs. Carrigan has blackmail material now. 

They take another one, with all of them grinning and holding still this time, and then Louis gets a kiss on both cheeks and a thank you before the girls zoom away across the lake, whooping. 

It takes Louis a while to regain his balance, his old man knees creaking as he struggles to get up. 

“Babe,” Harry says quietly, extending a hand to help Louis up, and Louis gladly takes it. He doesn’t let go when he sees Mrs. Carrigan glide closer. He’s suddenly too scared to face her alone. 

She stops in front of them, eyes the same colour as the ice underneath her feet, and lets her gaze linger on their intertwined hands in a very obvious way. Louis feels a stirring in his stomach, all ready to fight for Harry and himself. It’s become instinct. 

Mrs. Carrigan, however, doesn’t say anything. She pockets her phone, pulls her pashmina closer around herself, and with arms crossed across her chest and a deep wrinkle in the middle of her forehead, she _smiles_.

Then again, “smile” might be too strong a word – but Louis definitely sees the corners of her mouth pull up and stay as she regards him the same way she used to when he’d ask for permission to go to the toilets and not come back for the rest of the lesson. 

“Thank you,” she says, in the end. Harry squeezes Louis’s hand. “That made them very happy.” 

Louis fishmouths a little as he tries for polite. “It’s our pleasure,” he says. “The least we can do, really.” 

“They’ve been trying to convince their mother to take them to a concert of yours,” she divulges. “You are going on tour next year, correct?” 

Louis has to spur his brain a little, trying to remember his 2015 schedule. _Of course you’re going on tour, idiot_ , said brain supplies helpfully.

“Yes,” Harry jumps in before Louis can embarrass himself. “We’ll be touring the UK in the autumn. We could get you tickets, if you’d like.” 

Right, yeah. Tickets. Louis should have thought of that. 

“Could you really?” she asks, skeptical.

Louis’s brain to mouth filter must have had enough of the situation and fled, because the next thing he lets out of his big, big mouth is: “Well, it is our concert.” Once the alarm bells start ringing, he manages to tack on: “It shouldn’t be a problem at all.” 

To his never-ending surprise, Mrs. Carrigan doesn’t snatch him and carry him back to secondary school to chain him up at his desk, or whatever it is he’d thought she would do. She smiles again, quite easily, and brighter this time. 

“Very well, then. I shall be in touch.”

“We’ll look forward to it,” says Harry, ever polite. 

“Yes,” she says. “Now, if you’d excuse me, I have to go control my granddaughters.” She skates backwards, a little further away. She catches Louis’s gaze, and there’s something in her eyes that Louis doesn’t quite recognise – has never had aimed at him, not from her. 

Something like respect, maybe. 

“Happy Christmas, Mr. Tomlinson,” she nods. “Mr. Styles.” 

Louis feels some of his muscles relax, and he musters up what he hopes is a genuine smile. “Happy Christmas, Mrs. Carrigan.” 

She turns then, and glides away from them. Louis lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

“That was, uh. Intense,” Harry says. He’s still holding Louis’s hand in his, tight, keeping him from shaking apart even if Louis wanted to, and he really, really loves Harry.

“That’s one way to put it,” he agrees, and pulls on Harry’s sleeve until he gets the idea and shuffles closer on his skates. Louis uses the opportunity to snuggle into his side, seeking his warmth. “I’m…kind of glad that happened.” 

“Get any closure?” Harry asks, gentle and right to the point. He’s never one to beat around the bush, not with Louis. 

Louis chuckles and shrugs. “Dunno. It felt good, though. And I’m glad to see she’s nice, outside of school.” 

He feels a little tired, suddenly, and not just from the exercise. It’s already well past nine, and their family is definitely awake, wreaking havoc as everyone tries to help get dinner ready. 

Harry laughs, small and soft, into Louis’s hair. “Ready to go home?” 

“Think so,” Louis yawns. “We’ve still got to find our shoes.” 

And they do, eventually, gliding along the shoreline until they spot the path they took to the lake. Their shoes are still there, lined up neatly next to each other, courtesy of Harry. Louis smiles at the image; it reminds him of their own house, of when they kick them off after a long day and have an evening cuddle on the sofa. 

“Hey,” he says, pulling on Harry’s hand before he can amble off the ice. 

“What is it?” 

Louis grins. He drags Harry to him by the hand, leans up, and kisses him. It really is the best thing in the world, he thinks as he pecks Harry’s bottom lip, savouring the taste of strawberry lip balm and winter morning and his favourite boy; doesn’t matter if it’s between the walls of their home or out here in the open, with somebody’s eyes burning into Louis’s back and wind in his hair. 

“Love you,” he presses into Harry’s mouth along with one last peck, and enjoys Harry’s dazed green eyes blinking back at him. 

“Love you too, Lou,” he says, only a little confused. Louis strokes his cheek and leads them back to shore. 

Harry cranks up the heating in the car on the way back, and Louis stretches out his frozen toes. The streets are white and bright and empty, fairy lights on even in the sunlight, and Louis thinks he can smell the mince pies in the air already.

“What a beautiful day,” Harry says as he pulls into their street, his head turned to Louis. 

Louis smiles. What a beautiful day, indeed.

*

**Christmas Day**

Louis’s heart is thudding so hard it’s about to break his ribs. Probably. Harry tells him he’s being dramatic, but Harry is also the one who threw up in the morning, so he has no place to talk. 

“It’s okay,” mum keeps repeating, and Louis knows, he _knows_ , but it doesn’t do anything to ease the tight band of nerves that’s wrapped around his chest.

It’s been three hours since they opened presents. Louis and Harry both have their terrible Christmas sweaters on, their sisters are singing along to carols in the living room, and the boys have already sent approximately two dozen supportive texts. Each.

Louis has also had one shot of brandy, for courage, that turned out to be one shot too many. 

He takes another shallow breath, and lets the air out in a hiss through his front teeth. Harry’s hand is trembling in his. 

“Do you want us to leave you alone?” Robin asks, frowning in concern across the kitchen table.

 Louis shares a look with Harry, and it calms him a little to see his own nerves mirrored in Harry’s eyes. They can do this, he keeps telling himself, hoping that the message will get through. They can do it. They can they can they can.

“Uh…maybe? If that’s, like, okay,” Harry bites his lip. 

“Of course it’s okay, don’t be silly,” Anne says, already standing up. “This is about you boys. Whatever you need.” 

“Okay,” says Louis, because Harry seems to have exhausted all his words for the foreseeable future. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” his mum whispers, and walks around the table to press a kiss against both their foreheads. “Good luck, darlings. We love you very much.” 

Anne does the same; Robin and Dan squeeze their shoulders in silent support and walk out of the kitchen, closing the door behind them. 

Louis takes a second to just breathe. He’s not doing a very good job of it, but he tries his best. Next to him, Harry’s chest is falling and rising rapidly, and Louis thinks he might be waging the same war. 

Louis puts his elbows on the table and runs his hands through his hair. “Love,” he says, and Harry squeezes his knee to show he’s listening. “We need to do it.”

“I know,” Harry rasps. He’s still pale from his morning escapade to the bathroom, especially offset against the green of his sweater. “I know, it’s just. It’s such a small thing, and it feels so big.” 

“It is,” Louis reassures, bringing Harry’s knuckles to his lips and leaving a kiss there. “This is us stepping off a cliff, pretty much. There’s somebody at the bottom to catch us, but it’s still fucking terrifying.” 

Harry laughs a little, and some colour bleeds back into his cheeks. He leans in blindly, eyes closed, and Louis makes sure to meet his lip in a soft kiss.

Sunlight slants in through the window, another bright winter morning. Louis thinks they should have a snowball fight in the garden, after this. 

“Let’s do it,” Harry whispers suddenly into the kiss, his voice shaky on Louis’s lips. “Let’s do it, Lou.” 

Louis nods and swallows past the lump of dread in his throat. It’s just them. Just them. Harry and Louis, Louis and Harry, the damn dream team. They can do anything they set their hearts to. 

Harry’s phone has been sitting on the tabletop for what seems like hours, glinting, and the tiny camera lens seems to be staring Louis right in the eyes. He reaches out a shaking hand and flips it around, presses the home button. Harry’s lock screen is a picture of them snuggled up on a sofa, in a dressing room somewhere in America, asleep sitting up with their hands intertwined. Louis thinks Zayn may have taken it. 

His chest feels warm looking at the two of them – at the way Harry had moulded himself along the line of Louis’s body, the way Louis is resting his own head against Harry’s with his features relaxed. They look young. Carefree. 

He hands the phone to Harry and fidgets in his chair. They’ve talked about how to do it at length, with each other and with their team, with the actual _social media expert_ they have now. They’ve discussed a selfie versus a picture taken by someone else, from up close or from a distance, a pose or a candid. But really, Louis thinks, in the end, there’s only one way it can go. 

He gets out of his chair and into Harry’s lap. His heart is racing three hundred miles an hour, it seems, and when he rests a palm on Harry’s chest, he doesn’t seem to be doing much better.

Harry is biting down on his lip, hard, as he flips through his phone in search of the camera app. His breath breaks against Louis’s cheek, coming in short, staccato bursts. 

Louis leans forward to press a peck against Harry’s nose, his eyelids, his forehead, his ear and jaw and neck, drawing a map of kisses.

“Lou,” Harry grumbles, but the tense line between his eyebrows disappears, and that’s all Louis had wanted. 

“Okay?” he asks, watching as the phone screen goes black, then projects a picture of their legs, Louis’s thighs over Harry’s.

“Ask me in five minutes,” Harry replies, but his heartbeat seems to have slowed. 

As they’re staring it in the face – or in the lens – Louis feels the tension leave with every second that passes. They’ve done this a thousand times, thanks to Harry’s strange obsession with them taking couples’ pictures on every possible occasion. It’s okay. It’s _okay_.

“Ready?” Harry asks, flips the phone around and raises it to their level. His hand is still shaking.

 “As I’ll ever be,” Louis says, cupping his hands around Harry’s face. He cards through Harry’s hair, strokes his cheeks, his lips, reverent. Harry is everything, actually; Harry is the reason Louis is where he is, and there’s no place he’d rather be.

“Let’s do it, then,” Harry says, and doesn’t give Louis a chance to respond before he turns his head and kisses him.

It’s hard, at first, a crash more than a slide, an underlying desperation that’s painfully obvious in Harry’s trembling lips. Louis tries to keep his own anxiety in check as he coaxes Harry out of it, away, with gentle touches and soft sounds.

“Shh, darling,” he pulls away to say, just for a second, and discovers that a lump has settled in his throat, tight and immovable. 

Harry nods, jerky, and when they kiss again, it’s the kind of kiss that deserves a picture. Harry’s lips slot between Louis’s perfectly, so soft they barely feel like they’re touching, and this time around, there’s nobody, nothing else in the room but them. Louis can feel the sun on his face, can hear the tap dripping into the kitchen sink, but the only thing that really registers is Harry, all of him, everywhere. Louis is encased in his scent and his touch. His love. 

He moves his lips, resting one hand low on Harry’s neck and the other on his cheek, and grins. Something new and wonderful and giddy rises in his chest, even as he feels his eyes fill with tears behind his lids.

Harry smiles in response, his lips stretching against Louis’s, and that’s when the shutter goes off. Once, twice, three times, just to make sure they get a picture they can use. 

Louis refuses to pull away once it’s done. He wraps his arms around Harry’s neck, kisses him with everything he’s got, and thinks – this is what being free feels like. 

Harry is the first one to pull away for air. When Louis opens his eyes, he sees him in all his rumpled, debauched glory, hair sticking up from Louis’s curious fingers, lips a deep, dusty pink, and tear tracks down the apples of his cheeks. His eyes are shining an absolutely brilliant green, and he’s _smiling_ , smiling so wide his dimples are casting a shadow. 

Louis feels his own eyes burn, for a reason he can’t fathom, but he doesn’t let them bother him. He grins at his boy instead, and wipes away his tears.

“Almost there,” he whispers, afraid to break this spell that’s settled over them. He’s on top of the world, right here, right now, and he doesn’t want to come down just yet. 

“Almost,” Harry agrees. He squeezes Louis’s waist, settling deeper into the chair, more comfortable now. When he opens his camera roll, Louis feels a spark of excitement in his veins. 

And—there they are. There they are, on the backdrop of the kitchen window draped in fairy lights, lost in each other. 

They look beautiful. 

Louis lets a bewildered tear spill, not quite sure why he’s crying. Harry pulls him closer, leaning their heads against each other, temple to temple.

“Which one?” he asks, and Louis doesn’t know what answer to give. _All of them_ , he wants to say. _Show off. Tell everyone I’m the happiest man in the fucking world._

He points to the middle one, in the end, the one where they’d just started grinning into each other’s mouths. Harry’s _glowing_ in it, and Louis can pinpoint it as the moment he’d let all the worry fall off his shoulders.

Harry nods, hugging Louis closer and pecking his neck, and pulls up Instagram. He plays with the sliders until the green and red of their sweaters is overwhelmingly bright and Louis’s skin glows pink. The last effect he uses blurs out the kitchen behind them, leaving a faint glow of lights in the background and their faces in perfect focus. 

Louis looks at it for a minute, the picture that’s one tap away from being spread all over the Internet, never to be unseen. This is it, he knows, and it feels like the best Christmas present in the world.

A memory comes to him, unbidden, of watching a boy with curly hair and a pink-lipped smile sit on a stool and grin into a camera. Louis had been so anxious, covered in cold sweat and shaking with nerves, and yet, a single look had been enough to calm him down. He hadn’t known what it was – the boy’s lazy gestures or his cheeky smile, or perhaps the way he talked to the lens, earnest, like he was looking into somebody’s eyes; something about him had made warmth return to Louis’s veins, spreading like a wildfire until he felt ready to take on the world. 

He should have known, then, and maybe he had. More than four years later, the boy’s curls have loosened into waves, and his mouth has gotten redder from all the kisses Louis presses to it, but he’s still the same. Still Harry; still the boy Louis had fallen in love with before he knew what love really was. 

While Louis is lost in the memory, still trying to tamp down on his silly, silly tears, Harry pecks out a caption with one finger, a letter at a time. 

_Happy holidays to you and yours_ , he writes, and adds a couple of _x_ 's. _All our love_. 

“No cryptic caption?” 

“Nah,” Harry smiles. “Don’t need those anymore. Emojis, on the other hand…”

Louis is sure he’ll be back to posting nonsense in no time, but he doesn’t say anything. He watches Harry pick out a green heart, an anchor, and hover over the emoji of two men holding hands. 

Louis laughs. “Do it. Go big or go home.” 

Harry snorts, but taps it. They tiny emoji men join the tiny anchor and the tiny heart, and they look - ridiculous. Ridiculous, but right at home. 

“Alright, Hazza,” Louis says, so quiet it turns into a breath, and wraps his arms around Harry. “Push the button.” 

Louis can predict the exact effect that’s going to have on him, and he’s not disappointed when Harry giggles and starts humming Sugababes under his breath. He stretches his thumb towards the bottom of the screen. He taps the blue button. The picture loads, processes, posts – and it’s out there.

It’s _out there_. 

Holy shit.

Harry lets out a massive rush of breath, lays his phone face-down on the table, and hides his face in Louis’s neck. He’s trembling, and Louis thinks he might be, too, but it’s not with fear or nerves or anxiety – it’s with relief. That, and a whole lot of love. 

Harry’s phone starts ringing. He tenses, one arm leaving Louis to stretch towards the device dancing across the tabletop, and then pulls back. 

“Not yet,” he mumbles. 

Louis kisses his hair. Not yet is right; it’s been ten damn seconds. 

“Should we go see how the fam’s doing instead?” he asks, and his words coax out another smile. 

“Let’s,” Harry agrees. 

They unfold from the chair, somehow, always keeping in contact – Louis’s hand on Harry’s waist, Harry’s leg pressed to the side of Louis’s, their tangled fingers when they finally get themselves upright. 

The sun is still shining out behind the window. There is a steady _drip-drip-drip_ against the windowsill from melting icicles, but other than that, the street seems quiet. The world is still out there, it seems. It hasn’t stopped turning on its axis. Everything is okay.

It’s no more than three long steps from the kitchen to the living room, but it feels like a trek. When they finally stand in the doorway, Louis in front and Harry pressed against his back, they’re greeted with a startlingly normal image – their mums and Robin and Dan are all sat on the couch with brandy glasses; the babies are playing on the floor, watched over by Gemma and Fizzy, the twins are attempting to construct what looks like Frankenstein’s monster from their old Barbies, and Lottie—well, Lottie’s got her phone out, staring at the screen unblinkingly, and there is a suspiciously wet sheen in her eyes. 

Nobody seems to have noticed Harry and Louis, or at least they pretend they haven’t, and Louis is grateful for the few seconds of calm. He waits, breathes in, out, and squeezes Harry’s hand to let him know he’s good to go. 

Harry coughs. Everyone in the room – except Ernest and Doris, perhaps – seems to take it as a go-ahead to look at the two of them, and the mix of emotions Louis sees across the room is almost comical. 

“So, uh,” he grins, “that’s done, I guess.” 

Gemma snorts and, just like that, breaks the strange, fragile atmosphere.

 Their mums are the first ones to rush out of their seats, approaching with hugs and mile-wide smiles.

“We’re so proud of you,” Anne tells Louis as she wraps her arms around him and kisses his hair. Louis feels warm from the inside; feels proud, too. 

“Thanks, Mum,” he replies, and she beams at him when she pulls away. 

Lottie is the last to come up, and she slumps into Louis’s arms and holds him tight.

 “Everything okay?”

She nods, sniffling into his jumper. “It’s a really pretty picture.” 

Louis chuckles. He rubs comforting circles into her back until she’s less shaky, less timid, more like the Lottie he knows. “I’m not the one who took it,” he says, grinning, once he’s sure she’s okay. It prompts her to let go of him and move to Harry, who’s been watching the two of them with soft eyes, and hug him just as tight. They start whispering something immediately, and Louis leaves them to it. He doesn’t have to know – and really, there’s something incredibly, excitingly domestic in his sister and future husband being close enough to have secrets.

When Louis steps further inside the living room and sits down on the carpet, right next to Ernie’s tower made of wooden blocks, he can feel his phone buzzing a hole into his thigh. He doesn’t want to check it, doesn’t want to let the world in until absolutely necessary, but at the same time, the mobile is burning in his pocket, begging to be taken out. It’s been five minutes. Enough for the picture to gain momentum, their bearded, bespectacled social media expert had said. A couple swipes of Louis’s fingers, and he could crack this can of worms wide open. 

Thankfully, Harry’s there to save Louis from himself. He sits down, a little closer than he had just that morning, and extends an open palm towards Louis. In it, his special phone – his _band phone_ , as he calls it – lies shiny and silent, ready for the two of them to talk to the rest of their family. 

“Right,” Louis smiles. “God, they’re probably going crazy by now.” 

They excuse themselves for a minute, and nine smiles follow them out of the living room. When they step into the back garden, Louis is suddenly hit by the cold December air. It feels blissful on his hot cheeks. 

Harry starts tapping away at the screen, trying to set up a conference call, but Louis reaches out and stops him.

“Just phone one of them. They’re all together somewhere.” 

It is Christmas Day, but Louis has learned not to underestimate their boys.

“Right,” Harry grins, “probably.” 

He picks Niall, because Niall had stolen Harry’s phone some years ago and put an _AA_ in front of his name so that he’d show up first on the contact list. Harry hasn’t had the heart to change it since. 

Harry dials the number and puts it on speaker. It takes approximately one quarter of a ring. 

“Heeeey,” Niall’s voice shouts at a deafening volume. “Hello, lads.” 

Louis can’t stop grinning. “Nialler. How many pints in?” 

“Only five,” he grumbles, static crackling as he huffs into the microphone. “Payno wouldn’t let me have more.” 

“That’s because Payno wanted you to be conscious for this,” Liam’s voice contributes to the conversation and, if at all possible, Louis’s smile widens. 

“But I wanna celebrate!” Niall yells. 

“It’s Christmas,” Zayn cuts in, all smooth and painfully dry, but they can all hear the smile in his voice. “Should you be drunk on Christmas?” 

“ _Duh_ ,” is Niall’s reply. “Didn’t drag me entire family here from Ireland to be _sober_ on Christmas Day. ‘Sides, our two best mates just did the _thing_.”

Coincidentally, “our two best mates just did the thing” happens to be the exact same phrase Niall had used a good four years ago to inform everyone within hearing range that he’d caught Louis sucking Harry off in an empty broom closet. Louis giggles at the memory. 

“Right,” Liam says, like he’s just remembered. “How are you lads?” 

“I spoke to you last night,” says Harry. 

“Last night is not today,” says Liam, like he’s talking to a particularly petulant child. He tends to use that voice a lot around Harry, and Harry always gets hilariously offended. It’s Louis’s favourite thing. “You must’ve been so nervous.” 

“A little,” Louis admits, thinking back to the way his lungs felt frozen inside his chest. Zayn snorts on the other end of the line. “Or a lot.” 

“It’s a nice one, though,” Zayn says. “The picture. Almost made Niall cry.” 

He sounds a little bit _giddy_ , almost. He’s got to be happy he doesn’t have to make so many sacrifices anymore, of course, but Louis knows, he _knows_ how happy Zayn is for _them_. How happy all of them are. They’ve been with the two of them through thick and thin, there to offer a hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on and somebody to yell at when the frustration got to be too much. It took a toll on them, too, their situation, the industry, the _machine_ , and yet they rarely ever complained. 

“Not almost,” Niall defends. “I definitely cried. Why the fuck wouldn’t I?”

“Me mum’s crying, too,” Liam says. “But she says hi.” 

“Tell her hi back,” Harry says, beaming. Louis can tell that he’s already putting together recipes for fairy cakes that will hold up while he personally delivers them to Wolverhampton, along with plenty of cheek kisses and embarrassing Liam stories from tour. It’s the kind of relationship he has with Karen. 

“Really, though. How’s it feel?” 

Louis meets Harry’s eyes, glassy through the combined fog of their exhales. “How’s it feel, Haz?” he asks, soft enough that it’s just for the two of them. He feels all the negative emotions evaporating with every second, escaping through his pores along with body heat, dissolving in the air into white clouds that will never take concrete shape again. 

“Wonderful,” Harry says, louder, and grins back. His dimples come out; Louis can’t wait until he gets to poke them in the middle of a concert, when Harry’s looking at him in awe as sixty thousand people sing along to songs they wrote for each other. “It feels fucking wonderful.” 

Louis barks out a surprised laugh, always delighted to hear Harry’s naughty side come out.

“Good,” Liam says, and he’s laughing, too. “You sound happy.” 

“Yeah,” Louis breathes. “Yeah, we are, I think. It just needs to, you know,” he waves a hand, fully aware that nobody but Harry can actually see him, “sink in.” 

_Nobody can touch us here_ , he’d told Harry the night before, as they both waited for sleep to come and spoke in soft murmurs, hoping they wouldn’t wake up the babies. _We’re so far away from everything_. 

And they are – this is a sanctuary, one of the places they both feel safe. Once they go back to London, back to meetings and planning and being seen out in public together, it’s going to be a riptide. 

Louis is so, so ready. 

“Have you checked what people are saying yet?” Niall asks, tearing Louis away from his thoughts. “I wanted to, but Z took my phone.” 

“Can’t,” Harry replies. “I mean, we can, but.” 

“Yeah,” Niall agrees. 

Louis connects their hands, intertwines his fingers with Harry’s. 

“We’re so fucking happy for you, though,” says Zayn. “Like, you already know that, but I kind of needed to say it again.” 

Louis’s insides flutter like butterfly wings, and there’s silence. 

Niall breaks it. “Zayn totally cried, too,” he accuses. “He’s just too cool to admit it.” 

“Zayn’s not cool,” Louis grins. 

“Hey, now,” Liam chides, but he has a difficult time sounding serious through a bout of laughter. _I am definitely cool_ , Louis thinks he hears Zayn mumble.

Louis pulls Harry along as he steps further into the garden, right into the glistening fresh layer of snow. The sky is a beautiful icy blue, and the sun makes the lawn shine like a field of diamonds. It’s the most gorgeous Christmas Day Louis has ever seen, and perhaps that’s a sign. He’s sure as hell never felt happier than he does right now. 

“Listen, lads,” he says, and grins up at Harry to let him know what he’s about to say, “thank you.” 

Liam makes a confused little noise. “What for?” 

Louis wants to squish him. He wants to sit on Liam’s lap and pet the awful beard he’s grown over the past few weeks and tell him so many nice things. 

“Everything,” Harry says, a little hushed. “It’s just—you’ve—everything.” 

“Darling,” Louis whispers, smiling, and gives him a peck. His lips have gone a little cold. Harry smiles back and shrugs one shoulder. _I’d try to find the words, but I don’t need to_ , Louis translates. _They know_.

“It was our pleasure,” says Niall, sounding a little bit more sober. “Honestly, there was never even a question—“

“Exactly,” Louis interrupts. “Like, you didn’t—we barely knew each other, and then Harry and I sprang this on you, and you’ve done nothing but protect us ever since. It’s been four years, like. That’s a little crazy.” 

“Louis, you big dumb sack of potatoes,” Niall says with utmost affection, and his familiar drunken drawl returns. “We _love_ you.” 

“The two of you made us into a band,” Liam says. “Trying to hide all your lube so you’d stop crawling all over each other and pay attention to recording is still the best bonding experience we’ve ever had.” 

“But, like, your passion, yeah? That’s exactly what we needed back then,” says Zayn. “To bring us together.”

“You guys are making me cry,” Harry says, faking both an American accent and a snivelling voice, but Louis catches sight of a wet sheen in his eyes.

“Stop thanking us, then,” Liam says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe it is to them, but Louis has yet to stop waking up feeling grateful every day. “It’s what we’re here for.” 

“Protect Harry and Louis because they’re a damn miracle,” Niall’s voice crackles through the speaker. “And protect each other. The two of you do the same for all of us. It’s always been like this, you can’t possibly be that slow.” 

“You’re the slow one, Irish,” says Louis, a shining example of his fabled wit. “Fuck off.” 

Niall giggles on the other end of the line. Louis feels happiness inflate inside his chest like a balloon, one that could lift him off his feet and carry him away if it swells any more. 

Harry curls around him where they stand ankle-deep in new snow. Louis’s shoes are soaked through. 

“Thank you anyway,” Harry says, finally, and hides a smile in Louis’s hair. “We’d be nowhere without you.” 

“Nah, we’d definitely be a duo.” 

“ _Hey_ ,” Liam drags out, mock-offended, and Louis wants nothing more than to have them all here with him, his brothers in everything but blood, so he’d be able to chase them around the garden and tickle them and yell obscenities as a show of love, instead of huddling in Harry’s embrace and trying not to cry with happiness for the second damn time today.

“Sorry, Payno,” he grins. “You know I don’t mean that. We wouldn’t have lasted a day without your concerned eyebrows.” 

“ _Hey_ ,” he says again, but he’s drowned out by Niall’s happy belly laughs. 

Louis spares a moment to reminisce yet again. He remembers the X Factor vividly still, every day under the brand-new spotlights, followed by cameras and Harry’s flush-inducing presence all at once. It had felt like it was too good to be true, too big an opportunity, something that Louis couldn’t possibly hold on to. 

It’s true, what he’d said – if he hadn’t had Liam hovering over him menacingly throughout the competition, he would’ve just given up. If he hadn’t had Zayn, he would have felt even more an oddball than he already had; if he hadn’t had Niall, he never would’ve gotten the confidence to even walk up the damn stairs to the stage. 

And if he hadn’t had Harry, well. That’s a whole different story. 

The conversation had apparently gone on around him, with Harry telling a joke down the line that actually makes the three of them laugh on the other end. Louis smiles at him.

“Hey, Tommo,” Niall says suddenly. “We still on for your birthday party, yeah? We’ve got to do Secret Santa.” 

“Course,” Louis grins. “Sunday. Mark your calendars.” 

“Is this is a ‘so much booze I’ll spend two days in bed’ party, or a ‘Harry’s baking three hundred cupcakes' party?” Zayn asks.

“I can make boozy cupcakes,” Harry says immediately. Louis can see the seed take root in his head. 

“There you go,“ Louis grins. “A bit of both. Haz’ll make boozy cupcakes, I’ll break out a couple of bottles, we’ll play drunken board games and shit. A birthday worthy of the Tommo.” 

Zayn snorts. “The two of you are married,” he says. “And also, we’re hanging up now. Niall’s gotten hold of more beer.” 

“Look after him,” Harry says. 

Louis laughs: “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” 

“Bye, lads,” Liam says, in that annoyingly gentle voice of his, and the line clicks closed. 

“Well,” Louis says, and Harry pockets his phone only to wrap his arms around Louis’s shoulders. Louis snuggles in, ignoring how tiny it makes him feel, and breathes in the scent of his boy. It’s all Harry, sweet-smelling shampoo and that ridiculous cologne he insists on using, with just a hint of pine needles and the gingerbread-scented candles he’d brought from home. In short, perfect. 

“I love you,” Harry mumbles. “This feels really good.” 

Louis pulls away and grins up, up until he’s got Harry’s brilliant eyes shining back at him like emeralds. “Love you too, darling,” he says. “Here’s to feeling really good always.” And because he’s missing a glass to toast with, all he does is stand up on his tiptoes and give Harry a kiss. 

It’s then that mum shouts something about snack time from the back door. Harry bolts the second he catches the words _hot chocolate_ , and Louis can’t stop laughing as he chases him inside the house.

*

He lasts an impressive nine hours. Being around their family costs Louis a lot of energy, from wrestling Phoebe for a pair of scissors, worried she’ll accidentally stab herself while opening her presents, to answering all of Gemma’s incessant questions. They’ve been tied up in this game ever since they first met, really, trying to out-embarrass each other; not even the festive atmosphere had been enough to get her to let up.

Point is, Louis has had a busy day. There had been a snowball fight to organise, gingerbread to hand out, and a delicious-looking Harry to kiss when Louis’s siblings weren’t looking. 

Now, though, he’s lounging in bed, warm under the covers and with nothing to do while he waits for Harry to get out of the shower. He’s also had some brandy. A little bit. 

Their phones are lying on Harry’s nightstand, both face down and set on silent, half to quell the urge to check, and half to keep the babies asleep. Louis still sees the screens light up every two minutes or so, buzzing with a text or a call or a notification. Louis wonders how many people have things to say to him. What those things are. 

The official statement is going out in the morning, Louis knows. He should wait until then. 

The low lamplight is painting shadows on the ceiling, tall and a little terrifying, and Louis wishes he could go to sleep. He can hear Harry on the other side of the wall, though, humming something as he knocks over shampoo bottles, and the right side of the bed is cold and empty. He can’t even shout to ask how much longer he’ll take, not with Doris snuffling softly in sleep a few feet away. 

One could argue, then, that it’s boredom that makes him do it. That’s what Louis tells himself as he crawls across the bed, to the nightstand, and snatches his phone.

He has eighty-three missed calls, and he dismisses them without looking. His inbox says sixty-five messages – Louis figures that people he knows are the best place to start. 

The oldest one, right at the bottom, is from Lottie. It contains a single purple heart, and Louis lets himself be soppy and text her one right back. 

The next few are all polite and congratulatory, from Simon, from their new team, from Harry’s PA, even from Irving himself. Lou has written something he can’t decipher, Caroline’s says _well done!!!!!!!!!!!!!,_ and even Alberto, of all people, has texted a shrimp emoji, whatever it means. He’s a cryptic man, Alberto is. 

The next one is from Hannah, and Louis feels massively guilty and massively weepy all at once. He hasn’t seen her in such a long time, but she’d still sat down to type out _you both look so happy._ _this is amazing, congratulations, Lou xx_. Louis really loves her a lot, and makes a very large mental note to call her tomorrow morning. 

Twenty of the texts turn out to be from the boys – Niall’s last one was sent just a few minutes ago, and is little more than a mess of jumbled letters, the anchor emoji, and the Italian flag – the one Niall is known to claim is actually Irish, just red instead of orange. Liam’s are full of terrible grammar and disgustingly sweet encouragements that warm Louis’s cold, cold heart, and Zayn’s consist of several variations of _:)_ and pictures of Niall’s red, drunken face. Louis is really glad he saved the three of them for last. 

Done with his texts and feeling bold, he looks up to check that Harry’s still in the bathroom. The water’s not on anymore, but he’s still humming, probably putting on lotion like he does in the winter. He always comes to bed sticky with it, but smelling so good Louis wants to eat him. 

Whatever he’s doing, Harry’s out. Louis has time to make this terrible mistake and doesn’t stop himself, not even when he opens Twitter and taps the _Me_ tab. He closes one eye as he waits for it to refresh while he takes in the numbers with the other one, the Twitter handle he’s come to hate, and there’s still time, maybe, he can still close the app and—

Five hundred thousand followers. The horrible, wretched shell that his account has become has gained five hundred thousand followers since that morning. He knows, because he’d checked for this very purpose. 

As he switches tabs and goes scrolling down his feed, he mostly sees a whole lot of Caps Lock and his bandmates tweeting the link to Harry’s Instagram over and over, interspersed with random replies to fans that say _amazing!!_ or a variation thereof.

It’s when he decides to type his name into the search bar that divine intervention comes in the form of Harry, fluffy-haired and flushed from his shower. 

“What are you doing?” he asks, arms crossed and an amused eyebrow climbing ever higher up his forehead. It’s only then that Louis notices him, and he immediately drops the phone into the folds of the duvet. 

“Nothing,” he says unconvincingly, knowing full well that he’s just been caught red-handed, but also that Harry would never be actually upset about it. 

“Mhm,” says Harry, in the tone of someone who’s not buying a word. “And how’s nothing going?” 

Louis looks down at the small smartphone screen. It’s gone dark, locked all the bad things away before Louis went looking for them. 

“Really good,” he says, and he watches Harry stroll across the room in a pair of loose joggers, peering into the cribs with a smile. “I think, anyway. Alberto sent a shrimp.” 

“Oh,” Harry says, clearly delighted, “I didn’t think he’d remember!” 

Louis immediately identifies this as an inside joke. He stores it away to pester Alberto with later. 

“Come to bed,” he crows instead, and puts his phone away. There’s still a restlessness buzzing under his skin, but it’s not as incessant anymore, not the kind that makes him want to scratch until he’s satisfied the itch. 

Maybe he had, in his heart of hearts, expected to go online and find vitriol and nothing else. Maybe that’s what he’d been bracing for, this whole time. Maybe it’s _not coming_. 

Harry grins, easy, and tiptoes the rest of the way, sliding under the covers right alongside Louis. He brings a familiar warmth with him, and Louis curls into his side purring like a cat. 

“I missed you,” he mumbles, happy to let go of all boundaries that would usually tell him to be rational, because Harry had just been in the shower, less than ten steps away. 

“Lou,” Harry chuckles, and his chest rumbles under Louis’s cheek. His skin smells of rich vanilla and caramel, and Louis wants to melt and become one with him, just because he feels like he could never be close enough. “Missed you too, though. I’ve forgotten how to shower without you.” 

Louis giggles. “Sorry, babe,” he says, and imagines the grumpy face Harry is definitely making, “too many siblings in the house.” 

“Being back home will be fun,” Harry replies, cheeky, but Louis can tell he doesn’t mean it much. Harry loves it here, from the way Louis’s mum spoils him to Doris and Ernest’s ever-present happy chatter. 

Still, Louis hums in agreement, and presses a kiss to Harry’s chest, right between the swallows. He’s warm, and a little too big for his skin, like this many feelings at once should spill out through his pores and cover the both of them like a blanket of ridiculous happiness. 

Harry’s hand finds its way into Louis’s hair. “What a day,” he says, and he sounds tired. When Louis looks up at him, it’s to find him flushed a lovely pink, with entire galaxies spinning in his eyes. 

“What a day,” he agrees. “Imagine tomorrow.” 

“Imagine every day after that,” Harry counters with a smile. “Imagine.” 

Louis does. He’s been imagining it for years, really, but now it’s reality. He’s going to _live it_. 

“What a life,” he says in a whisper. “What an amazing thing, you and I.” 

Harry looks blindingly happy when his hand finds Louis’s and intertwines their fingers. He’s still wearing one of his rings. 

Louis takes a deep breath. He imagines a crowd chanting their names, a wall of flashing cameras and voices calling after them, people stopping them on the street to say something that will make Harry beam with pride. Imagines doing important things, meeting important people, apologising for things that have been done in his name, reaching out to kids across the world who are as scared as he once was. He imagines coming home to a house that smells like lavender candles and baby powder, imagines cooking dinner that will turn into disaster, imagines being old and grey and still holding Harry’s hand. Having it all.

“Hey, Haz?” he asks, just as Harry turns the light off. 

“Yeah?” 

“Marry me.”

“ _Again_?”

***

They’re in Melbourne when Louis does it. The stadium is lit up with spotlights, booming with fireworks, and fifty-six thousand people are singing along to a song Louis penned that one time he woke up with a hard-on.

Harry’s pure energy, flying across the stage so fast Louis can barely follow, blowing kisses and striking perfect twirls and flipping his hair left and right. When he settles down and sits for _18_ , right next to Louis with their knees pressed together, he looks flushed and radiant in the lights. His lips are a rich cherry red, his eyes green, and even in the humid Australian summer, he looks a little like Christmas. 

It’s then, after they finish the song and stand up and Liam segues into his speech, that Louis looks up at the dark night sky and realises he’s well and truly won. 

“Haz,” he says, and Harry is right there, like he always is, touching Louis’s elbow with gentle fingers. 

“You okay?” he asks, concerned, even as he chugs his fifth water bottle of the night. 

“I’m golden,” Louis says, turns around, and kisses him. 

Harry melts into it immediately, resting a light hand on Louis’s hip and grinning like a fool. 

Around them, the crowd hushes – Louis thinks Liam might have stopped talking as well, but he doesn’t much care. He lets himself feel, just this once, half-hidden in the shadows of the stage with Harry all around him and adrenaline in his veins. 

Zayn laughs, and he sets off the roar of the crowd. It’s a noise like Louis has never heard before, a cacophony that still sounds beautiful, thousands of voices shouting for _them_. 

Harry grins wider against Louis’s lips. Across the stage, Liam tuts into his microphone and resumes talking. Niall cracks a joke about kissing on the job. 

Harry pulls away, opens his eyes. Every single star Louis has ever seen is right there, drowning in his irises.

“That’s what that feels like,” he breathes, and Louis soars. 

They’ve arrived.

_~fin_

**Author's Note:**

> shameless plug time! i totally have a [tumblr](http://hattalove.tumblr.com) and i totally want to talk to you. have a nice day.


End file.
